What Maisie knew

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University of California • Berkeley

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WHAT MAISIE KNEW

What Maisie Knew

BY

HENRY JAMES

HERBERT S. STONE & CO.
CHICAGO & NEW YORK

MDCCCXCVII

COPYRIGHT 1897 BY
HERBERT S. STONE & CO.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

THE litigation had seemed interminable,
and had in fact been complicated ; but,
by the decision on the appeal, the judgment
of the divorce-court was confirmed as to the
assignment of the child. The father, who,
though bespattered from head to foot, had
made good his case, was, in pursuance of
this triumph, appointed to keep her : it was
not so much that the mother's character had
been more absolutely damaged as that the
brilliancy of a lady's complexion (and this
lady's, in court, was immensely remarked),
might be more regarded as showing the
spots. Attached, however, to the second
announcement was a condition that detracted,
for Beale Farange, from its sweetness, — an
order that he should refund to his late wife
the twenty-six hundred pounds put down by
her, as it was called, some three years before,
in the interest of her child's maintenance,
and precisely on a proved understanding that

2 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

he would take no proceedings; a sum of
which he had had the administration, and of
which he could render not the least account !
The obligation thus attributed to her adver-
sary was no small balm to Ida's resentment.
It drew a part of the sting from her defeat,
and compelled Mr. Farange perceptibly to
lower his crest. He was unable to produce
the money or to raise it in any way; so
that after a squabble scarcely less public
and scarcely more decent than the original
shock of battle, his only issue from his pre-
dicament was a compromise proposed by his
legal advisers, and finally accepted by hers.

His debt was by this arrangement remitted
to him, and the little girl disposed of in a
manner worthy of the judgment-seat of
Solomon. She was cut in twain, and the
portions tossed impartially to the disputants.
They would take her in rotation for six
months at a time ; she would spend half the
year with each. This was odd justice in
the eyes of those who still blinked in the
fierce light projected from the divorce- court,
— a light in which neither parent figured in
the least as a happy example to youth and
innocence. What was to have been expected
on the evidence was the nomination in loco

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 3

parentis, of some proper third person, some
respectable or at least some presentable
friend. Apparently, however, the circle of
the Faranges had been scanned in vain for
any such ornament; so that the only solu-
tion finally meeting all the difficulties was —
save that of sending Maisie to a home — the
diversion of the tutelary office in the manner
I have mentioned. There were more reasons
for her parents to agree to it than there had
ever been for them to agree to anything;
and they now prepared, with her help, to
enjoy the distinction that waits upon vulgar-
ity sufficiently attested. Their rupture had
resounded, and after being perfectly insig-
nificant together, they would be decidedly
striking apart. Had they not produced an
impression that warranted people in looking
for appeals in the newspapers for the rescue
of the little one, — reverberation, amid a
vociferous public, of the idea that some
movement should be started or some benevo-
lent person should come forward ? A good
lady came indeed a step or two. She was
distantly related to Mrs. Farange, to whom
she proposed that, having children and
nurseries wound up and going, she should
be allowed to take home the bone of con-

4 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

tention, and, by working it into her system,
relieve at least one of her parents. This
would make every time, for Maisie, after
her inevitable six months with Beale, much
more of a change.

" More of a change ? " Ida cried. " Won't
it be enough of a change for her to come
from that low brute to the person in the
world who detests him most."

" No, because you detest him so much that
you '11 always talk to her about him. You '11
keep him before her by perpetually abusing
him."

Mrs. Farange stared. "Pray, then, am I
to do nothing to counteract his villainous
abuse of me?"

The good lady, for a moment, made no
reply. Her silence was a grim judgment
of the whole point of view. "Poor little
monkey!" she at last exclaimed, and the
words were an epitaph for the tomb of
Maisie's childhood. She was abandoned to
her fate. What was clear to any spectator
was that the only link binding her to either
parent was this lamentable fact of her being
a ready vessel for bitterness, a deep little
porcelain cup in which biting acids could be
mixed. They had wanted her, not for any

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 5

good they could do her, but for the harm
they could, with her unconscious aid, do
each other. She should serve their anger
and seal their revenge, for husband and wife
had been alike crippled by the heavy hand
of justice, which, in the last resort, met on
neither side their indignant claim to get, as
they called it, everything. If each was only
to get half, this seemed to concede that
neither was so base as the other pretended;
or, to put it differently, offered them as both
bad indeed, since they were only as good
as each other. The mother had wished to
prevent the father from, as she said, "so
much as looking" at the child; the father's
plea was that the mother's lightest touch
was "simply contamination." These were
the opposed principles in which Maisie was
to be educated ; she was to fit them together
as she might. Nothing could have been
more touching at first than her failure to
suspect the ordeal that awaited her little
unspotted soul. There were persons horri-
fied to think what those who had charge of
it would combine to try to make of it; no
one could conceive in advance that they
would be able to make nothing ill.

This was a society in which, for the most

6 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

part, people were occupied only with chat-
ter, but the disunited couple had at last
grounds for expecting a period of high activ-
ity. They girded their loins ; they felt as if
the quarrel had only begun. They felt
indeed more married than ever, inasmuch as
what marriage had mainly suggested to them
was the high opportunity to quarrel. There
had been "sides" before, and there were
sides as much as ever; for the sider, too,
the prospect opened out, taking the pleasant
form of a superabundance of matter for
desultory conversation. The many friends
of the Faranges drew together to differ
about them — contradiction grew young
again over teacups and cigars. Everybody
was always assuring everybody of something
very shocking, and nobody would have been
jolly if nobody had been outrageous. The
pair appeared to have a social attraction
which failed merely as regards each other.
It was indeed a great deal to be able to say
for Ida that no one but Beale desired her
blood ; and for Beale that if he should ever
have his eyes scratched out it would be only
by his wife. It was generally felt, to begin
with, that they were awfully good-looking;
they had really not been analyzed to a deeper

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 7

residuum. They made up together, for in-
stance, some twelve feet of stature; and
nothing was more discussed than the appor-
tionment of this quantity. The sole flaw in
Ida's beauty was a length and reach of arm
conducive perhaps to her having so often
beaten her ex-husband at billiards — a game
in which she showed a superiority largely
accountable, as she maintained, for the re-
sentment finding expression in his physical
violence. Billiards were her great accom-
plishment and the distinction her name
always first produced the mention of. Not-
withstanding some very long lines, every-
thing about her that might have been large,
and that in many women profited by the
license, was, with a single exception, admired
and cited for its smallness. The exception
was her eyes, which might have been of
mere regulation size, but which overstepped
the modesty of nature. Her mouth, on the
other hand, was barely perceptible, and odds
were freely taken as to the measurement of
her waist. She was a person who, when she
was out — and she was always out — produced
everywhere a sense of having been often
seen, the sense indeed of a kind of abuse of
visibility, so that it would have been, in the

8 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

usual places, rather vulgar to wonder at her.
Strangers only did that; but they, to the
amusement of the familiar, did it very much ;
it was an inevitable way of betraying an
alien habit. Like her husband, she carried
clothes, carried them as a train carries pas-
sengers. People had been known to compare
their taste and dispute about the accommo-
dation they gave these articles, though
inclining on the whole to the commendation
of Ida as less overcrowded, especially with
jewelry and flowers. Beale Farange had
natural decorations, a kind of costume in
his vast fair beard, burnished like a gold
breastplate, and in the eternal glitter of the
teeth that his long mustache had been
trained not to hide and that gave him, in
every possible situation, the look of the joy
of life. He had been destined in his youth
to diplomacy and momentarily attached,
without a salary, to a legation which enabled
him often to say "In my time, in the
East ; " but contemporary history had some-
how had no use for him, had hurried past
him and left him in perpetual Piccadilly.
Every one knew what he had — only twenty-
five hundred. Poor Ida, who had run through
everything, had now nothing but her car-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 9

riage and her paralyzed uncle. This old
brute, as he was called, was supposed to
have a lot put away. The child was pro-
vided for, thanks to a crafty godmother, a
defunct aunt of Beale's, who had left her
something in such a manner that the parents
could appropriate only the income.

THE child was provided for; but the new
arrangement was inevitably confounding to
a young intelligence, intensely aware that
something had happened which must matter
a good deal and looking anxiously for the
great effects of so great a cause. It was to
be the fate of this patient little girl to see
much more than, at first, she understood,
but also, even at first, to understand much
more- than any little girl, however patient,
had perhaps ever understood before. Only
a drummer-boy in a ballad or a story could
have been so in the thick of the fight. She
was taken into the confidence of passions on
which she fixed just the stare she might
have had for images bounding across the
wall in the slide of a magic-lantern. Her

io WHAT MAISIE KNEW

little world was phantasmagoric — strange
shadows dancing on a sheet. It was as if
the whole performance had been given for
her — a mite of a half-scared infant in a
great dim theatre. She was in short intro-
duced to life with a liberality in which the
selfishness of others found its account, and
there was nothing to avert the sacrifice but
the modesty of her youth.

Her first term was with her father, who
spared her only in not letting her have the
wild letters addressed to her by her mother.
He confined himself to holding them up at
her and shaking them, while he showed his
teeth, and then amusing her by the way he
chucked them, across the room, bang into
the fire. Even at that moment, however,
she had a scared anticipation of fatigue, a
guilty sense of not rising to the occasion,
feeling the charm of the violence with which
the stiff unopened envelopes, whose big
monograms — Ida bristled with monograms
— she would have liked to see, were made
to whiz, like dangerous missiles, through
the air. The greatest effect of the great
cause was her own greater importance,
chiefly revealed to her in the larger freedom
with which she was handled, pulled hither

WHAT MAISIE KNEW n

and thither and kissed, and the proportion-
ately greater niceness she was obliged to
show. Her features had somehow become
prominent ; they were so perpetually nipped
by the gentlemen who came to see her
father and the smoke of whose cigarettes
went into her face. Some of these gentle-
men made her strike matches and light their
cigarettes ; others, holding her on knees
violently jolted, pinched the calves of her
legs until she shrieked — her shriek was
much admired — and reproached them with
being toothpicks. The word stuck in her
mind and contributed to her feeling from
this time that she was deficient in something
that would meet the general desire. She
found out what it was : that a congenital
tendency to the production of a substance to
which Moddle, her nurse, gave a short, ugly
name, a name painfully associated with the
part of the joint, at dinner, that she did n't
like. She had left behind her the time
when she had no desires to meet, none at
least save Moddle' s, who, in Kensington
Gardens, was always on the bench when she
came back to see if she had been playing too
far. Moddle' s desire was merely that she

shouldn't do that; and she met it so easily
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

12 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

that the only spots in this long brightness
were the moments of her wondering what
would become of her if, on her coming back,
there should be no Moddle on the bench.
They still went to the Gardens, but there
was a difference even there. She was im-
pelled perpetually to look at the legs of
other children and ask her nurse if they
were toothpicks. Moddle was terribly truth-
ful — she always said : " Oh, my dear, you '11
not find such another pair as your own ! " It
seemed to have to do with something else
that Moddle often said: "You feel the
strain — that 's where it is; and you '11 feel
it still worse, you know."

Thus, from the first, Maisie not only felt
it, but knew that she felt it. A part of it
was the consequence of her father's telling
her that he felt it too, and telling Moddle,
in her presence, that she must make a point
of driving that home. She was familiar, at
the age of six, with the fact that everything
had been changed on her account, everything
ordered to enable him to give himself up to
her. She was to remember always the words
in which Moddle impressed upon her that
he did so give himself : " Your papa wishes
you never to forget, you know, that he has

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 13

been dreadfully put about. " If the skin on
Moddle's face had, to Maisie, the air of
being unduly, almost painfully stretched, it
never presented that appearance so much as
when she uttered, as she often had occasion
to utter, such words. The child wondered if
they didn't make it hurt more than usual;
but it was only after some time that she was
able to attach to the picture of her father's
sufferings, and more particularly to her
nurse's manner about them, the meaning for
which these things had waited. By the
time she had grown sharper, as the gentle-
men who criticised her calves used to say,
she found in her mind a collection of images
and echoes to which meanings were attach-
able — images and echo.es kept for her in the
childish dusk, the dim closet, the high
drawers, like games she was not yet big
enough to play. The great strain meanwhile
was that of carrying, by the right end, the
things her father said about her mother —
things mostly, indeed, that Moddle, on a
glimpse of them, as if they had been compli-
cated toys or difficult books, took out of her
hands and put away in the closet. It was a
wonderful assortment of objects of this kind
that she discovered there later, all tumbled

14 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

up too with the things, shuffled into the
same receptacle, that her mother had said
about her father.

She had the knowledge that on a certain
occasion which every day brought nearer,
her mother would be at the door to take her
away; and this would have darkened all the
days if the ingenious Moddle had not written
on a paper, in very big, easy words, ever so
many pleasures that she would enjoy at the
other house. These promises ranged from " a
mother's fond love" to "a nice poached egg
to your tea; " and took by the way the pros-
pect of sitting up ever so late to see the lady
in question dressed in silks and velvets and
diamonds and pearls to go out. So that it
was a real support to Maisie, at the supreme
hour, to feel that, by Moddle' s direction,
the paper was thrust away in her pocket
and there clenched in her fist. The supreme
hour was to furnish her with a vivid reminis-
cence, that of a strange outbreak, in the
drawing-room, on the part of Moddle, who,
in reply to something her father had just
said, cried aloud : " You ought to be per-
fectly ashamed of yourself; you ought to
blush, sir, for the way you go on!" The
carriage, with her mother in it, was at the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 15

door. A gentleman who was there, who
was always there, laughed out very loud.
Her father, who had her in his arms, said to
Moddle: "My dear woman, I'll settle you
presently ! " after which he repeated, show-
ing his teeth more than ever at Maisie while
he hugged her, the words for which her
nurse had taken him up. Maisie was not at
the moment so fully conscious of them as of
the wonder of Moddle's sudden disrespect
and crimson face ; but she was able to pro-
duce them, in the course of five minutes,
when, in the carriage, her mother, all
kisses, ribbons, eyes, arms, strange sounds
and sweet smells, said to her: "And did
your beastly papa, my precious angel, send
any message to your own loving mamma? "
Then it was that she found the words spoken
by her beastly papa to be, after all, in her
little bewildered ears, from which, at her
mother's appeal, they passed, in her clear,
shrill voice, straight to her little innocent
lips. "He said I was to tell you from
him," she faithfully reported, "that you're
a nasty horrid pig ! "

16 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

II

IN that lively sense of the immediate
which is the very air of a child's mind, the
past, on each occasion, became, for her, as
indistinct as the future: she surrendered
herself to the actual with a good faith that
might have been touching to either parent.
Crudely as they had calculated they were
at first justified by the event; she was the
little feathered shuttlecock that they fiercely
kept flying between them. The evil they
had the gift of thinking or pretending to
think of each other they poured into her
little gravely-gazing soul as into a boundless
receptacle; and each of them had doubtless
the best conscience in the world as to the
duty of teaching her the stern truth that
should be her safeguard against the other.
She was at the age when all stories are true
and all conceptions are stories. The actual
was the absolute; the present alone was
vivid. The objurgation, for instance,
launched in the carriage by her mother after
she had, at her father's bidding, punctually
performed, was a missive that dropped into
her memory with the dry rattle of a letter

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 17

falling into a pillar-box. Like the letter,
it was, as part of the contents of a well-
stuffed post-bag, delivered in due course at
the right address. In the presence of these
overflowings, after they had continued for a
couple of years, the associates of either
party sometimes felt that something should
be done for what they called "the real good,
don't you know? " of the child. The only
thing done, however, in general, took place
when it was sighingly remarked that she
fortunately wasn't all the year round where
she happened to be at the awkward moment;
and that, furthermore, either from extreme
cunning or from extreme stupidity, she
appeared not to take things in.

The theory of her stupidity, eventually
embraced by her parents, corresponded with
a great date in her small, still life, the com-
plete vision, private but final, of the strange
office she filled. It was literally a moral
revolution, and it was accomplished in the
depth of her nature. The stiff dolls on the
dusky shelves began to move their arms and
legs ; old forms and phrases began to have a
sense that fright? Aed her. She had a new
feeling, the feelAg of danger — on which a
new remedy rc/e to meet it, the idea of an

18 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

inner self or, in other words, of conceal-
ment. She puzzled out with imperfect signs,
but with a prodigious spirit, that she had
been a centre of hatred and a messenger of
insult, and that everything was bad because
she had been employed to make it so. Her
parted lips locked themselves with the deter-
mination to be employed no longer. She
would forget everything; she would repeat
nothing ; and when, as a tribute to the suc-
cessful application of her system, she began
to be called a little idiot, she tasted a
pleasure altogether new. If, accordingly,
as she grew older, her parents in turn, in
her presence, announced that she had grown
shockingly dull, it was not from any real
contraction of her little stream of life. She
spoiled 'their fun, but she practically added
to her own. She saw more and more; she
saw too much. It was Miss Overmore, her
first governess, who, on a momentous occa-
sion, had sown the seeds of secrecy, sown
them not by anything she said, but by a
mere roll of those fine eyes which Maisie
already admired. Moddle had become, at
this time, after alterations of residence of
which the child had no clear record, an
image faintly embalmed in the remembrance

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 19

of hungry disappearances from the nursery
and distressful lapses in the alphabet, sad
embarrassments, in particular, when invited
to recognize something that her nurse called
"the important letter haitch." Miss Over-
more, however hungry, never disappeared;
this marked her somehow as a being more
exalted, and the character was confirmed by
a prettiness that Maisie supposed to be
extraordinary. Mrs. Farange had said that
she was almost too pretty, and some one had
asked what that mattered so long as Beale
wasn't there. "Beale or no Beale," Maisie
had heard her mother say in reply, " I take
her because she 's a lady and yet awfully poor.
Rather nice people, but there are seven sis-
ters at home. What do people mean? "

Maisie did n't know what people meant,
but she knew very soon all the names of all
the sisters. She could say them off better
than she could say the multiplication-table.
She privately wondered, moreover, though
she never asked, about the awful poverty, of
which her companion also never spoke.
Food, at any rate, came up by mysterious
laws. Miss Overmore never, like Moddle,
had on an apron, and when she ate she held
her fork with her little finger curled out.

20 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

The child, who watched her at many mo-
ments, watched her particularly at that one.
"I think 'you 're lovely," she often said to
her. Even mamma, who was lovely too,
had not such a pretty way with the fork.
Maisie associated this showier presence with
her now being "big," knowing of course
that nursery-governesses were only for little
girls who were not, as she said, " really "
little. She vaguely knew, further, some-
how, that the future was still bigger than
she, and that a part of what made it so was
the number of governesses lurking in it and
ready to dart out. Everything that had hap-
pened when she was really little was dormant,
everything but the positive certitude, be-
queathed from afar by Moddle, that the
natural way for a child to have her parents
was separate and successive, like her mutton
and her pudding or her bath and her nap.

"Does he know that he lies?" that was
what she had vivaciously asked Miss Over-
more on the occasion which was so suddenly
to lead to a change in her life.

" Does who know — ? " Miss Overmore
stared: she had a stocking pulled over her
hand and was pricking at it with a needle
which she poised in the act. Her task was

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 21

homely, but her movement, like all her
movements, graceful.

"Why, papa."

"That he Mies'— ?"

"That's what mamma says I am to tell
him — that he lies and he knows he lies."
Miss Overmore turned very red, though she
laughed out till her head fell back ; then she
pricked again at her muffled hand so hard
that Maisie wondered how she could bear it.
"Am I to tell him? " the child went on. It
was then that her companion addressed her
in the unmistakable language of a pair of
eyes of deep dark gray. "I can't say no,"
they replied as distinctly as possible. "I
can't say no, because I 'm afraid of your
mamma, don't you see? Yet how can I say
yes after your papa has been so kind to me,
talking to me so long the other day, smiling
and flashing his beautiful teeth at me the
time we met him in the Park, the time when,
rejoicing at the sight of us, he left the
gentleman he was with and turned and
walked with us, stayed with us for half an
hour? " Somehow, in the light of Miss Over-
more' s lovely eyes, that incident came back
to Maisie with a charm it had not had at the
time, and this in spite of the fact that after

22 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

it was over her governess had never but once
alluded to it. On their way home, when
papa had quitted them, she had expressed
the hope that the child wouldn't mention it
to mamma. Maisie liked her so, and had
so the charmed sense of being liked by
her, that she accepted this remark as settling
the matter and wonderingly conformed to it.
The wonder now lived again, lived in the
recollection of what papa had said to Miss
Overmore. " I 've only to look at you to
see that you 're a person to whom I can
appeal to help me to save my daughter."
Maisie's ignorance of what she was to be
saved from didn't diminish the pleasure of
the thought that Miss Overmore was saving
her. It seemed to make them cling together.

Ill

SHE was therefore all the more startled
when her mother said to her in connection
with something to be done before her next
migration: "You understand, of course,
that she's not going with you."

Maisie turned quite faint. " Oh, I thought
she was ! "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

23

"It doesn't matter in the least, you know,
what you think!" Mrs. Farange loudly
replied; "and you had better, indeed, for
the future, miss, learn to keep your thoughts
to yourself ! "

This was exactly what Maisie had already
learned, and the accomplishment was just the
source of her mother's irritation. It was of
a horrid little critical system, a tendency,
in her silence, to judge her elders that this
lady suspected her, liking, as she did, for
her own part, a child to be simple and con-
fiding. She liked also to hear the report of
the whacks she administered to Mr. Farange's
character, to his pretensions to peace of
mind ; the satisfaction of dealing them dimin-
ished when nothing came back. The day
was at hand, and she felt it, when she should
feel more delight in hurling Maisie at him
than in snatching her away ; so much so that
her conscience winced under the acuteness
of a candid friend who had remarked that the
real end of all their tugging would be that
each parent would try to make the little girl
a burden to the other — a sort of game in
which a fond mother clearly wouldn't show
to advantage. The prospect of not showing
to advantage, a distinction in which she held

24 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

that she had never failed, begot in Ida
Farange an ill-humor of which several
persons felt the effect. She determined that
Beale, at any rate, should feel it. She
reflected afresh that in the study of how to
be odious to him she must never give way.
Nothing could incommode him more than
not to get the good, for the child, of a nice
female appendage who had clearly taken a
fancy to her. One of the things Ida said to
the appendage was that Beale' s was a house
in which no decent woman could consent to
be seen. It was Miss Overmore herself who
explained to Maisie that she had a hope of
being allowed to accompany her to her
father's and that this hope had been dashed
by the way her mother took it. " She says
if I ever do such a thing as enter his service
I must never, in this house, expect to show
my face again. So I 've promised not to
attempt to go with you. If I wait patiently
till you come back here we shall certainly
be together again."

Waiting patiently, and above all waiting
till she should come back there, seemed to
Maisie a long way round. It reminded her
of all the things she had been told, first and
last, that she should have if she would be

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 25

good and that in spite of her goodness she
had never had at all. " Then who will take
care of me at papa's ? "

" Heaven only knows, my own precious ! "
Miss Overmore replied, tenderly embracing
her. There was indeed no doubt that she
was dear to this beautiful friend. What
could have proved it better than the fact that
before a week was out, notwithstanding their
sharp separation and her mother's prohi-
bition and Miss Overmore's scruples and
Miss Overmore's promise, the beautiful
friend had turned up at her father's? The
little lady already engaged to come there by
the hour, a fat, dark little lady with a
foreign name and dirty fingers, who wore,
throughout, a bonnet that had at first given
her a deceptive air of not staying long, besides
asking her pupil questions that had nothing
to do with lessons, questions that Beale
Farange himself, when two or three were
repeated to him, admitted to be awfully
vulgar — this strange apparition faded before
the bright creature who had braved every-
thing for Maisie's sake. The bright creature
told her little charge frankly what had hap-
pened — that she had really been unable to
hold out. She had broken her vow to Mrs.

26 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Farange. She had struggled for three days,
then she had come straight to Maisie's papa
and told him the simple truth. She adored
his daughter; she couldn't give her up; she
would make any sacrifice for her. On this
basis it had been arranged that she should
stay; her courage had been rewarded; she
left Maisie in no doubt as to the amount of
courage she had required. Some of the
things she said made a particular impression
on the child — her declaration, for instance,
that when her pupil should get older she
would understand better just how "dread-
fully bold " a young lady, to do exactly what
she had done, had to be.

"Fortunately your papa appreciates it;
he appreciates it immensely " — that was one
of the things Miss Overmore also said, with
a striking insistence on the adverb. Maisie
herself was no less impressed with what her
friend had gone through, especially after
hearing of the terrible letter that had come
from Mrs. Farange. Mamma had been so
angry that, in Miss Overmore' s own words,
she had loaded her with insult — proof
enough indeed that they must never look
forward to being together again under
mamma's roof. Mamma's roof, however,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 27

had its turn, this time, for the child, of
appearing but remotely contingent ; so that,
to reassure her, there was scarce a need of
her companion's secret, solemnly confided
— the idea that there should be no going
back to mamma at all. It was Miss Over-
more' s private conviction, and apart of the
same communication, that if Mr. Farange's
daughter would only show a really marked
preference she would be backed up by
"public opinion" in holding on to him.
Poor Maisie could scarcely grasp that incen-
tive, but she could surrender herself to the
day. She had conceived her first passion,
and the object of it was her governess. It
had not been put to her, and she could n't
or at any rate she didn't put it to herself,
that she liked Miss Overmore better than
she liked papa; but it would have sustained
her under such an imputation to feel herself
able to reply that papa too liked Miss Over-
more exactly as much. He had particularly
told her so. Besides she could easily see it.

28 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

IV

ALL this led her on ; but it brought on her
fate as well, the day when her mother would
be at the door in the carriage in which
Maisie now rode on no occasions but these.
There was no question at present of Miss
Overmore's going back with her; it was
universally recognized that the quarrel with
Mrs. Farange was much too acute. The
child felt it from the first. There was no
hugging or exclaiming as that lady drove
her away; there was only a frightening
silence, unenlivened even by the invidious
inquiries of former years, which culminated,
according to its stern nature, in a still more
frightening old woman, a figure awaiting her
on the very doorstep. " You 're to be under
this lady's care," said her mother. "Take
her, Mrs. Wix!" she added, addressing the
figure impatiently and giving the child a
push in which Maisie felt that she wished
to set Mrs. Wix an example of energy.
Mrs. Wix took her, and Maisie felt the next
day that she would never let her go. She
had struck her at first, just after Miss Over-
more, as terrible; but something in her

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 29

voice, at the end of an hour, touched the
little girl in a spot that had never even been
reached. Maisie knew later what it was,
though doubtless she could n't have made a
statement of it. These were things that a
few days' conversation with Mrs. Wix lighted
up. The principal one was a matter that
Mrs. Wix herself always immediately men-
tioned; she had had a little girl quite of
her own, and the little girl had been killed
on the spot. She had had absolutely nothing
else in all the world, and her affliction had
broken her heart. It was comfortably estab-
lished between them that Mrs. Wix's heart
was broken. What Maisie felt was that she
had been, with passion and anguish, a
mother; and that this was something Miss
Overmore was n't ; something strangely, con-
fusingly, that mamma was even less.

So it was that, in the course of an extra-
ordinarily short time, she found herself more
deeply absorbed in the image of the little
dead Clara Matilda, who, on a crossing in
the Harrow Road, had been knocked down
and crushed by the cruellest of hansoms,
than she had ever found herself in the family
group made vivid by one of seven. "She 's
your little dead sister," Mrs. Wix ended by

3o WHAT MAISIE KNEW

saying, and Maisie, all in a tremor of curios-
ity and compassion, addressed from that
moment a particular piety to the small in-
fectious sentiment. Somehow she wasn't a
real sister, but that only made her the more
romantic/ It contributed to this view of her
that she was never to be spoken of in that
character to any one else — least of all to
Mrs. Farange, who wouldn't care for her
nor recognize the relationship. It was to
be just an unutterable and inexhaustible
little secret with Mrs. Wix. Maisie knew
everything about her that could be known,
everything she had said or done in her little
mutilated life, exactly how lovely she was,
exactly how her hair was curled and her
frocks were trimmed. Her hair came down
far below her waist; it was of the most won-
derful gold brightness, just as Mrs. Wix's
own had been a long time before. Mrs.
Wix's own was indeed very remarkable still,
and Maisie had felt at first that she should
never get on with it. It played a large part
in the sad and strange appearance, the air
as of a greasy grayness, which Mrs. Wix
had presented on the child's arrival. It had
originally been yellow, but time had turned
its glow to ashes, to a turbid, sallow, unven-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

31

erable white. Still excessively abundant,
it was dressed in a manner of which the
poor lady appeared not yet to have recognized
the supersession, with a glossy braid, like a
large diadem, on the top of her head, and
behind, at the nape of the neck, a dingy
rosette like a large button. She wore
glasses which, in humble reference to a
divergent obliquity of vision, she called her
straighteners, and a little ugly snuff-colored
dress, trimmed with satin bands in the form
of scallops and glazed with antiquity. The
straighteners, she explained to Maisie, were
put on for the sake of others, whom, as she
believed, they helped to recognize the direc-
tion, otherwise misleading, of her glance.
The rest of the melancholy attire could only
have been put on for herself. With the
added suggestion of her goggles it reminded
her pupil of the polished shell or corselet of
a horrid beetle. At first she had looked
cross and almost cruel ; but this impression
passed away with the child's increased per-
ception of her being, in the eyes of the
world, a figure mainly for laughter. She
was passively comical — a person whom
people, to make talk lively, described to
each other and imitated. Every one knew

32 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

the straighteners ; every one knew the dia-
dem and the button, the scallops and satin
bands; everyone, though Maisie had never
betrayed her, knew even Clara Matilda.

It was on account of these things that
mamma got her for so little money, really
for nothing. So much, one day when Mrs.
Wix had accompanied her into the drawing-
room and left her, the child heard one of the
ladies she found there — a lady with eye-
brows arched like skipping-ropes and thick
black stitching, like ruled "lines," on beau-
tiful white gloves — announce to another.
She knew governesses were poor; Miss Over-
more was unmentionably and Mrs. Wix fa-
miliarly so. Neither this, however, nor the
old brown frock, nor the diadem, nor the
button, made a difference for Maisie in
the charm put forth through everything, the
charm of Mrs. Wix's conveying that some-
how, in her ugliness and her poverty, she was
peculiarly and soothingly safe, safer than
any one in the world — than papa, than
mamma, than the lady with the arched
eyebrows, safer even, though much less
beautiful, than Miss Overmore, on whose
loveliness, as she supposed it, the little girl
was faintly conscious that one could n't rest

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

33

with quite the same tucked-in and kissed-
for-good-night feeling. Mrs. Wix was as
safe as Clara Matilda, who was in heaven,
and yet, embarrassingly, also in Kensal
Green, where they had been together to see
her little huddled grave. It was from some-
thing in Mrs. Wix's tone, which, in spite of
caricature, remained indescribable and inimi-
table, that Maisie, before her term with her
mother was over, drew this sense of a tender-
ness that would never fail her. If she knew
her instructress was poor and queer she also
knew that she was not nearly so "qualified"
as Miss Overmore, who could say lots of
dates straight off (letting you hold the book
yourself), state the position of Malabar, play
six pieces without notes, and, in a sketch,
put in beautifully the trees and houses and
difficult parts. Maisie herself could play
more pieces than Mrs. Wix, who was more-
over visibly ashamed of her houses and trees
and could only, with the help of a smutty
forefinger, of doubtful legitimacy in the
field of art, do the smoke coming out of the
chimneys.

They dealt, the governess and her pupil,
in "subjects;" but there were many the
governess put off from week to week and
3

34 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

that they never got to at all ; she only used
to say "We '11 take that in its proper order."
Her order was a circle as vast as the untrav-
elled globe. She had not the spirit of
adventure, and the child could perfectly see
how many subjects she was afraid of. She
took refuge on the firm ground of fiction,
through which, indeed, there flowed the blue
river of truth. She knew swarms of stories,
mostly those of the novels she had read,
relating them with a memory that never
faltered and a wealth of detail that was
Maisie's delight. They were all about love
and beauty and countesses and wickedness.
Her conversation was practically an end-
less narrative, a great garden of romance,
with sudden vistas into her own life and
gushing fountains of fact. These were the
parts where they most lingered. She made
the child take with her again every step of
her long, lame course and think it a journey
in an enchanted land. Her pupil acquired
a vivid vision of every one who had ever, in
her phrase, knocked against her — some of
them oh so hard! — every one literally but
Mr. Wix, her husband, as to whom nothing
was mentioned save that he had been dead
for ages. He had been rather remarkably

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 35

absent from his wife's existence, and Maisie
was never taken to see his grave.

THE second parting from Miss Overmore
had been bad enough, but this first parting
from Mrs. Wix was much worse. The child
had lately been to the dentist's; she had a
term of comparison for the screwed-up
intensity of the scene. It was dreadfully
silent, as it had been when her tooth was
taken out. Mrs. Wix had on that occasion
grabbed her hand, and they had clung to
each other with the frenzy of their determi-
nation not to scream. Maisie, at the
dentist's, had been heroically still, but just
when she felt most anguish had become
aware, on the part of her companion, of an
audible shriek, a spasm of stifled sympathy.
This was reproduced by the only sound that
broke their supreme embrace when, a month
later, the "arrangement," as her periodical
up-rootings were called, played the part of
the horrible forceps. Embedded in Mrs.
Wix's clasp as her tooth had been sunk in
her gum, the operation of extracting her

36 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

would really have been a case for chloroform.
It was a hug that fortunately left nothing to
say, for the poor woman's want of words, at
such an hour, seemed to fall in with her
want of everything. Maisie's alternate
parent, in the outermost vestibule — he liked
the impertinence of crossing as much as that
of his late wife's threshold — stood over
them with his open watch and his still more
open grin, while from the only corner of an
eye on which something of Mrs. Wix's did n't
impinge the child saw at the door a brougham
in which Miss Overmore also waited. She
remembered the difference when, six months
before, she had been torn from the breast of
that more spirited protectress. Miss Over-
more, then also in the vestibule, but of
course in the other one, had been thoroughly
audible and voluble. Her protest had rung
out bravely, and she had declared that some-
thing— her pupil didn't know exactly what

— was a regular wicked shame. That had
at the time dimly recalled to Maisie the
far-away moment of Moddle's great outbreak

— there seemed always to be "shame " con-
nected in one way or another with her migra-
tions. At present, while Mrs. Wix's arms
tightened and the smell of her hair was

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 37

strong, she further remembered how, in
pacifying Miss Overmore, papa had made
use of the words, "you dear old duck" — an
expression which, by its oddity, had stuck
fast in her young mind, having moreover a
place well prepared for it there by what she
knew of the governess whom she now always
mentally characterized as the pretty one.
She wondered whether this affection would
be as great as before; that would at all
events be the case with the prettiness.
Maisie could see it in the face which showed
brightly at the window of the brougham.

The brougham was a token of harmony,
of the fine conditions papa this time would
offer. He had usually come for her in a
hansom with a four-wheeler behind for the
boxes. The four-wheeler with the boxes on
it was actually there; but mamma was the
only lady with whom she had ever been in a
conveyance of the kind always, of old,
spoken of by Moddle as a private carriage.
Papa's carriage was, now that he had one,
still more private somehow than mamma's;
and when at last she found herself quite on
top, as she felt, of its inmates and gloriously
rolling away she put to Miss Overmore,
after another immense and more talkative

38 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

squeeze, a question of which the motive was
a desire for information as to the continuity
of a certain sentiment. " Did papa like you
just the same while I was gone ? " she
inquired, full of the sense of how markedly
his favor had been established in her pres-
ence. She had bethought herself that this
favor might, like her presence, and as if
depending on it, be only intermittent and
for the season. Papa, on whose knee she
sat, burst into one of those loud laughs of
his that, however prepared she was, seemed
always, like some trick in a frightening
game, to leap forth to make her jump;
then, before Miss Overmore could speak, he
replied: "Why, you little donkey, when
you 're away what have I left to do but just
to love her?" Miss Overmore hereupon
immediately took her from him, and they
had, over her, an hilarious little scrimmage
of which Maisie caught the surprised obser-
vation in the white stare of an old lady who
passed in a victoria. Then her beautiful
friend remarked to her very gravely : " I
shall make him understand that if he ever
again says anything as horrid as that to you
I shall carry you straight off and we'll go
and live somewhere together and be good

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

39

quiet little girls. " The child could n't quite
make out why her father's speech had been
horrid, since it only expressed that apprecia-
tion which their companion herself, of old,
described as "immense." To enter more
into the truth of the matter she appealed to
him again directly, asked if in all these
months Miss Overmore had n't been with
him just as she had been before and just as
she would be now. " Of course she has, old
girl, where else could the poor dear be ? "
cried Beale Farange, to the still greater
scandal of their companion, who protested
that unless he straightway "took back" his
nasty, wicked fib, it would be, this time, not
only him she would leave, but his child, too,
and his house and his tiresome troubles —
all the impossible things he had succeeded
in putting on her. Beale, under this frolic
menace, took nothing back at all. He was
indeed apparently on the point of repeating
his assertion, but Miss Overmore instructed
her little charge that she was not to listen
to his bad jokes. She was to understand
that a lady could n't stay with a gentleman
that way without some awfully proper reason.
Maisie looked from one of her companions
to the other; this was the freshest, mer-

40 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

riest start she had yet enjoyed, but she had
a shy fear of not exactly believing them.
" Well, what reason is proper ? " she thought-
fully demanded.

"Oh, a long-legged stick of a tomboy;
there 's none so good as that ! " Her father
enjoyed both her drollery and his own, and
tried again to get possession of her — an
effort resisted by the third person and lead-
ing again to something of a public scuffle.
Miss Overmore declared to the child that
she had been all the while with good friends,
on which Beale Farange went on : " She
means good friends of mine, you know —
tremendous friends of mine. There has been
no end of them about — that I will say for
her ! " The child felt bewildered and was
afterwards for some time conscious of a
vagueness, just slightly embarrassing, as to
the subject of so much amusement and as
to where her governess had really been. She
did n't feel at all as if she had been seriously
told, and no such feeling was supplied by
anything that occurred later. Her embar-
rassment, of a precocious, instinctive order,
attached itself to the idea that this was
another of the matters that it was not for
her, as her mother used to say, to go into.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 41

Therefore, under her father's roof, during
the time that followed, she made no attempt
to clear up her ambiguity by a sociable inter-
rogation of housemaids ; and it was an odd
truth that the ambiguity itself took nothing
from the fresh pleasure promised her by
renewed contact with Miss Overmore. The
confidence looked for by that young lady was
of the fine sort that explanation cannot
improve, and she herself, at any rate, was
a person superior to all confusion. For
Maisie, moreover, concealment had never
necessarily seemed deception, and she had
grown up among things as to which her
former knowledge was that she was not to
ask about them. It was far from new to her
that the questions of the small are the pecu-
liar diversion of the great. Except the affairs
of her doll Lisette, there had scarcely ever
been anything at her mother's that was
explicable with a grave face. Nothing was
so easy to her as to send the ladies who
gathered there off into shrieks, and she
might have practised upon them largely if
she had been of a more calculating turn.
Everything had something behind it. Life
was like a long, long corridor with rows of
closed doors. She had learned that at these

42 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

doors it was wise not to knock — that seemed
to produce, from within, such sounds of
derision. Little by little, however, she
understood more, for it befell that she was
enlightened by Lisette's questions, which
reproduced the effect of her own upon those
for whom she sat in the very darkness of
Lisette. Was she not herself convulsed by
such innocence ? In the presence of it she
often imitated the shrieking ladies. There
were at any rate things she really could n't
tell even a French doll. She could only
pass on her lessons and study to produce on
Lisette the impression of having mysteries
in her life, wondering the while whether she
succeeded in the air of shading off, like her
mother, into the unknowable. When the
reign of Miss Overmore followed that of
Mrs. Wix she took a fresh cue, emulating
her governess and bridging over the interval
with the simple expectation of trust. Yes,
there were matters one couldn't go into with
a pupil. There were, for instance, days
when, after prolonged absence, Lisette,
while she took off her things, tried hard to
discover where she had been. Well, she
discovered a little, but she never discovered
all. There was an occasion when, on her

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 43

being particularly indiscreet, Maisie replied
to her — and precisely about the motive of a
disappearance — as she, Maisie, had once
been replied to by Mrs. Farange, " Find out
for yourself!" She mimicked her mother's
sharpness, but she was rather ashamed after-
wards, though as to whether of the sharpness
or of the mimicry was not quite clear.

VI

SHE became aware in time that this would
be a period not remarkable for lessons,
the care of her education being now only
one of the many duties devolving on Miss
Overmore; a circumstance as to which she
was present at various passages between that
lady and her father — passages significant,
on either side, of dissent and even of dis-
pleasure. It was gathered by the child on
these occasions that there was something in
the situation for which her mother might
" come down " on them all, though indeed
the suggestion, always thrown out by her
father, was greeted on his companion's part
with particular derision. Such scenes were
usually brought to a climax by Miss Over-

44 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

more's demanding, in a harsher manner than
she applied to any other subject, in what
position under the sun such a person as Mrs.
Farange would find herself for coming down.
As the months went on the little girl's
interpretations thickened, and the more
effectually that this period was the longest
she had yet known without a break. She
became familiar with the idea that her
mother, for some reason, was in no hurry to
reinstate her. That idea was forcibly ex-
pressed by her father whenever Miss Over-
more, differing and decided, took him up on
the question, which he was always putting
forward, of the urgency of sending her to
school. For a governess Miss Overmore
differed surprisingly ; far more, for instance,
than would ever have entered into the head
of poor Mrs. Wix. She remarked to Maisie
many times that she was quite conscious of
not doing her justice and that Mr. Farange
equally measured and equally lamented this
deficiency. The reason of it was that she
had mysterious responsibilities that inter-
fered— responsibilities, Miss Overmore in-
timated, to Mr. Farange himself and to
the friendly, noisy little house and those
who came there. Mr. Farange' s remedy for

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

45

every inconvenience was that the child
should be put to school — there were such
lots of splendid schools, as everybody knew,
at Brighton and all over the place. That,
however, Maisie learned, was just what would
bring her mother down; from the moment
he should delegate to others the housing of
his little charge he had n't a leg to stand on
before the law. Did n't he keep her away
from her mother precisely because Mrs.
Farange was one of those others?

There was also the solution of a second
governess, a young person to come in by
the day and really do the work ; but to this
Miss Overmore would n't for a moment lis-
ten, arguing against it with great public rel-
ish and wanting to know from all comers
— she put it to Maisie herself — if they
didn't see how frightfully it would give her
away. " What am I supposed to be at all,
don't you see, if I 'm not here to look after
her?" She was in a false position, and so
freely and loudly called attention to it that
it seemed to become almost a source of
glory. The way out of it, of course, was
just to do her plain duty; but that was un-
fortunately what, with his excessive, his
exorbitant demands on her, which every one

46 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

indeed appeared quite to understand, he
practically, he selfishly prevented. Beale
Farange, for Miss Overmore, was now never
anything but " he ; " and the house was as
full as ever of lively gentlemen with whom,
under that designation, she chaffingly talked
about him. Maisie meanwhile, as a subject
of familiar gossip on what was to be done
with her, was left so much to herself that
she had hours of wistful thought of the large,
loose discipline of Mrs. Wix. Yet she none
the less held it, under her father's roof, a
point of superiority that none of his visitors
were ladies. It added to this odd security
that she had once heard a gentleman say to
him as if it were a great joke, and in obvious
reference to Miss Overmore: "Hanged if
she '11 let another woman come near you —
hanged if she ever will. She 'd let fly a
stick at her as they do at a strange cat ! "
Maisie greatly preferred gentlemen as inti-
mates in spite of their also having their way
— louder, but sooner over — of laughing out
at her. They pulled and pinched, they
teased and tickled her; some of them even,
as they termed it, shied things at her, and
all of them thought it funny to call her
by names having no resemblance to her

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 47

own. The ladies, on the other hand, ad-
dressed her as " You poor pet " and scarcely
touched her even to kiss her; but it was of
the ladies she was most afraid.

She was old enough now to understand
how disproportionate a stay she had already
made with her father; and also old enough
to enter a little into the ambiguity that sur-
rounded this circumstance and that oppressed
her particularly whenever the question had
been touched upon in talk with her gover-
ness. " Oh, you need n't worry ; she does n't
care!" Miss Overmore had often said to her
in reference to any fear that her mother
might resent her prolonged detention. " She
has other people than poor little you to think
about, and she has gone abroad with them,
and you needn't be in the least afraid that
she'll stickle this time for her rights."
Maisie knew Mrs. Farange had gone abroad,
for she had had, many weeks before, a letter
from her, that began "My precious pet"
and that took leave for an indeterminate
time ; but she had not seen in it a renuncia-
tion of hatred or of the writer's policy of
asserting herself, for the sharpest of all her
impressions had been that there was nothing
her mother would ever care so much about

48 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

as to torment Mr. Farange. What at last,
however, in this connection, was bewilder-
ing and a little frightening was the dawn of
a suspicion that a better way had been found
to torment Mr. Farange than to deprive him
of his periodical burden. This was the
question that worried our young lady and
that Miss Overmore's confidences and the
frequent observations of her employer only
rendered more mystifying. It was a contra-
diction that if Ida had now a fancy for shirk-
ing the devotion she had originally been so
hot about her late husband should n't jump
at the monopoly for which he had also in the
first instance so fiercely fought; but when
Maisie, with a subtlety beyond her years,
sounded this new ground her main success
was in hearing her mother more freshly
abused. Miss Overmore, up to now, had
rarely deviated from a decent reserve; but
the day came when she expressed herself
with a vividness not inferior to Beale's own
on the subject of the lady who had fled to
the continent to wriggle out of her job. It
would serve this lady right, Maisie gathered,
if that contract, in the shape of an over-
grown and underdressed daughter, should
be shipped straight out to her and landed

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 49

at her feet in the midst of scandalous pas-
times.

The picture of these pursuits was what
Miss Overmore took refuge in when the
child tried timidly to ascertain if her father
were in danger of feeling that he had too
much of her. She evaded the point and
only kicked up all around it the dust of
Ida's heartlessness and folly, of which the
supreme proof, it appeared, was the fact that
she was accompanied on her journey by a
gentleman whom, to be painfully plain
about it, she had — well, "picked up."
The only terms on which, unless they were
married, ladies and gentlemen might, as
Miss Overmore expressed it, knock about
together, were the terms on which she and
Mr. Farange had exposed themselves to
possible misconception. She had indeed,
as I have intimated, often explained this
before, often said to Maisie: "I don't know
what in the world, darling, your father and
I should do without you ; for you just make
the difference, as I 've told you, of making
us perfectly proper. " The child took, in the
office it was so endearingly presented to her
that she performed, a comfort that helped
her to a sense of security even in the event
4

50 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

of being abandoned by her mother. Familiar
as she had become with the idea of the great
alternative to the proper, she felt that her
governess and her father would have a sub-
stantial reason for not emulating that detach-
ment. At the same time she had heard
somehow of little girls — of exalted rank, it
was true — whose education was carried on
by instructors of the other sex; and she
knew that if she were at school at Brighton
it would be thought an advantage to her to
be more or less in the hands of masters.
She meditated on these mysteries and she
at last remarked to Miss Overmore that if
she should go to her mother perhaps the
gentleman might become her tutor.

"The gentleman — ?" The proposition
was complicated enough to make Miss Over-
more stare.

" The one who 's with mamma. Might n't
that make it right — as right as your being my
governess makes it for you to be with papa? "

Miss Overmore considered. She colored
a little; then she embraced her ingenious
disciple. "You're too sweet! I 'm a real
governess. "

"And couldn't he be a real tutor?"

" Of course not. He 's ignorant and bad."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 51

"Bad — ? " Maisie echoed with wonder.

Her companion gave a queer little laugh at
her tone. " He 's ever so much younger — "
But here she paused.

" Younger than you ? "

Miss Overmore laughed again. It was
the first time Maisie had seen her approach
so nearly to a giggle. " Younger than — no
matter whom ! I don't know anything about
him, and I don't want to ! " she rather incon-
sequently added. "He's not my sort, and
I 'm sure, my own darling, he 's not yours."
And she repeated the embrace with which
her colloquies with Maisie almost always
terminated and which made the child feel
that her affection at least was a gage of
safety. Parents had come to seem preca-
rious, but governesses were evidently to be
trusted. Maisie' s faith in Mrs. Wix, for
instance, had suffered no lapse from the fact
that all communication with her was tempo-
rarily at an end. During the first weeks of
their separation Clara Matilda's mamma had
repeatedly and dolefully written to her, and
Maisie had answered with an excitement
qualified only by orthographical delays ; but
this correspondence had been duly submitted
to Miss Overmore, with the final conse-

52 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

quence of incurring a lively disapproval. It
was this lady's view that Mr. Farange
would n't care for it at all ; and she ended by
confessing — since her pupil pushed her —
that she didn't care for it herself. She was
furiously jealous, she said; and that circum-
stance was only a new proof of her disinter-
ested affection. She pronounced Mrs. Wix's
effusions moreover illiterate and unprofit-
able, and made no scruple of declaring it
extraordinary that a woman in her senses
should have placed the formation of her
daughter's mind in such ridiculous hands.
Maisie was well aware that the proprietress
of the old brown dress and the old odd head-
gear was a very different class of person from
Miss Overmore; but it was now brought
home to her with pain that she was educa-
tionally quite out of the question. She was
buried for the time beneath a conclusive
remark of Miss Overmore' s — " She 's really
beyond a joke! " This remark was made as
that charming woman held in her hand the
last letter that Maisie was to receive from
Mrs. Wix; it was fortified by a decree
abolishing the preposterous tie. "Must I
then write and tell her — ? " the child
bewilderedly inquired. She grew pale at

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 53

the image of the dreadful things it appeared
to be prescribed to her to say. " Don't dream
of it, my dear — /'// write; you may trust
me ! " cried Miss Overmore, who indeed
wrote to such purpose that a hush in which
you could have heard a pin drop descended
upon poor Mrs. Wix. She gave for weeks
and weeks no sign whatever of life. It was
as if she had been as effectually disposed of
by Miss Overmore's communication as her
little girl, in the Harrow Road, had been dis-
posed of by the terrible hansom. Her very
silence became, after this, one of the largest
elements of Maisie's consciousness ; it proved
a warm and habitable air, into which the
child penetrated further than she dared ever
to mention to her companions. Somewhere
in the depths of it the dim straighteners
were fixed upon her ; somewhere out of the
troubled little current Mrs. Wix was in-
tensely waiting.

VII

IT quite fell in with this intensity that
one day, on returning from a walk with the
housemaid, Maisie should have found her

54 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

in the hall, seated on the stool usually
occupied by the telegraph-boys who haunted
Beale Farange's door and kicked their heels
while, in his room, answers were concocted
with the aid of smoke-puffs and growls. It
had seemed to her on their parting that
Mrs. Wix had reached the last limits of the
squeeze; but she now felt those limits to be
transcended and that the duration of her
visitor's hug was a direct reply to Miss
Overmore's act of abolition. She under-
stood in a flash how the visit had come to be
possible — that Mrs. Wix, watching her
chance, must have slipped in under protec-
tion of the fact that papa, always tormented,
in spite of her arguments, with the idea of a
school, had for a three days' excursion to
Brighton absolutely insisted on the attend-
ance of her adversary. It was true that when
Maisie explained their absence and their
important motive Mrs. Wix wore an expres-
sion so peculiar that it could only have had
its origin in surprise. This contradiction,
however, peeped out only to vanish, for at
the very moment that, in the spirit of it,
she threw herself afresh upon her young
friend a hansom crested with neat luggage
rattled up to the door and Miss Overmore

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 55

bounded out. The shock of her encounter
with Mrs. Wix was less violent than Maisie
had feared on seeing her and didn't at all
interfere with the sociable tone in which,
in the presence of her rival, she explained to
her little charge that she had returned, for a
particular reason, a day sooner than she first
intended. She had left papa — in such nice
lodgings — at Brighton ; but he would come
back to his dear little home on the morrow.
As for Mrs. Wix, papa's companion supplied
Maisie in later converse with the right word
for the attitude of this personage : Mrs. Wix
" stood up " to her in a manner that the child
herself felt at the time to be astonishing.
This occurred indeed after Miss Overmore
had so far waived her interdict as to make
a move to the dining-room, where, in the
absence of any suggestion of sitting down, it
was scarcely more than natural that even
poor Mrs. Wix should stand up. Maisie
immediately inquired if at Brighton, this
time, anything had come of the possibility
of a school ; to which, much to her surprise,
Miss Overmore, who had always grandly
repudiated it, replied, after an instant, but
quite as if Mrs. Wix were not there —

" It may be, darling, that something will

56 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

come. The objection, I must tell you, has
been quite removed."

At this it was still more startling to hear
Mrs. Wix speak out with great firmness.
"I don't think, if you'll allow me to say
so, that there's any arrangement by which
the objection can be ' removed. ' What has
brought me here to-day is that I 've a mes-
sage for Maisie from dear Mrs. Farange. "

The child's heart gave a great thump.
" Oh, mamma 's come back ? "

"Not yet, sweet love, but she's coming,"
said Mrs. Wix; "and she has — most thought-
fully, you know — sent me on to prepare you. "

"To prepare her for what, pray?" asked
Miss Overmore, whose primitive mildness
had evidently, with this news, taken a turn
for the worse.

Mrs. Wix quietly applied her straighteners
to Miss Overmore' s florid loveliness. "Well,
miss, for a very important communication. "

" Can't dear Mrs. Farange, as you so oddly
call her, make her communications directly?
Can't she take the trouble to write to her
only daughter ? " the younger lady demanded.
" Maisie herself will tell you that it 's months
and months since she has had so much as a
word from her."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW. 57

"Oh, but I 've written to mamma!" cried
the child, as if this would do quite as well.

" That makes her treatment of you all the
greater scandal ! " the governess in posses-
sion promptly declared.

"Mrs. Farange is too well aware," said
Mrs. Wix, with sustained spirit, "of what
becomes of her letters in this house."

Maisie's sense of fairness hereupon inter-
posed for her visitor. "You know, Miss
Overmore, that papa doesn't like everything
of mamma's."

"No one likes, my dear, to be made the
subject of such language as your mother's
letters contain. They were not fit for the
innocent child to see," Miss Overmore
observed to Mrs. Wix.

"Then I don't know what you complain
of, and she 's better without them. It serves
every purpose that I 'm in Mrs. Farange 's
confidence."

Miss Overmore gave a scornful laugh.
"Then you must be mixed up with some
extraordinary proceedings."

"None so extraordinary," cried Mrs. Wix,
turning very pale, "as to say horrible things
about the mother to the face of the helpless
daughter."

58 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"Things not a bit more horrible, I think,"
Miss Overmore rejoined, "than those you,
madam, appear to have come here to say
about the father."

Mrs. Wix looked for a moment hard at
Maisie; then, turning again to her other
interlocutress, she spoke with a trembling
voice. " I came to say nothing about him,
and you must excuse Mrs. Farange and me
if we are not as irreproachable as the com-
panion of his travels. "

The young woman thus described stared an
instant at the audacity of the description —
she apparently needed time to take it in.
Maisie, however, gazing solemnly from one
of the disputants to the other, observed that
her answer, when it came, perched upon
smiling lips. "It will do quite as well, no
doubt, if you come up to the requirements
of the companion of Mrs. Farange."

Mrs. Wix broke into a queer laugh — it
sounded to Maisie like an unsuccessful imi-
tation of a neigh. "That's just what I'm
here to make known — how perfectly the
poor lady comes up to them herself!" She
straightened herself before the child. " You
must take your mamma's message, Maisie,
and you must feel that her wishing me to

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

59

come to you with it this way is a great proof
of interest and affection. She sends you
her particular love and announces to you
that she 's engaged to be married to Sir
Claude."

" Sir Claude ? " Maisie wonderingly echoed.
But while Mrs. Wix explained that this
gentleman was a dear friend of Mrs.
Farange's, who had been of great assistance
to her in getting to Florence and in making
herself comfortable there for the winter, she
was not too violently shaken to perceive her
old friend's enjoyment of the effect of this
news on Miss Overmore. The young lady
opened her eyes and flushed. She imme-
diately remarked that Mrs. Farange's mar-
riage would of course put an end to any
further pretensions to take her daughter
back. Mrs. Wix inquired with astonishment
why it should do anything of the sort, and
Miss Overmore promptly gave as a reason
that it was clearly but another dodge in a
system of dodging. She wanted to get out
of the bargain : why else had she now left
Maisie on her father's hands weeks and
weeks beyond the time about which she had
originally made such a fuss? It was vain
for Mrs. Wix to represent — as she speedily

60 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

proceeded to do — that all this time would be
made up as soon as Mrs. Farange returned.
She, Miss Overmore, knew nothing, thank
heaven, about her confederate; but she was
very sure that any person capable of forming
that sort of relation with the lady in Florence
was a person who could easily be put for-
ward as objecting to the presence in his
house of the fruit of a union that his dignity
must ignore. It was a game like another,
and Mrs. Wix's visit was clearly the first
move in it. Maisie found in this exchange
of asperities a fresh incitement to the un-
formulated fatalism in which her observation
of her own career had long since taken
refuge ; and it was the beginning, for her, of
a deeper prevision that, in spite of Miss
Overmore' s brilliancy and Mrs. Wix's pas-
sion, she should live to see a change in the
nature of the struggle she appeared to have
come into the world to produce. It would
still be essentially a struggle, but its object
would now be not to receive her.

Mrs. Wix, after Miss Overmore's last
demonstration, addressed herself wholly to
the little girl, and, drawing from the pocket
of her dingy old pelisse a small flat parcel,
removed its envelope and wished to know if

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 61

that looked like a gentleman who wouldn't
be nice to everybody — let alone to a person
he would be so sure to find so nice. Mrs.
Farange, in the geniality of new-found hap-
piness, had enclosed a " cabinet " photograph
of Sir Claude, and Maisie lost herself in
admiration of the fair, smooth face, the
regular features, the kind eyes, the amiable
air, the general glossiness and smartness of
her prospective step-father — only vaguely
puzzled to think that she should now have
two fathers at once. Her researches had
hitherto indicated that to incur a second
parent of the same sex you had usually to
lose the first. "Isn't he sympathetic?"
asked Mrs. Wix, who had clearly, on the
strength of his charming portrait, made
up her mind that Sir Claude promised her a
future. "You can see, I hope," she added
with much expression, " that he 's a perfect
gentleman ! " Maisie had never before heard
the word "sympathetic" applied to any-
body's face; it struck her very much, and
from that moment it agreeably remained
with her. She testified, moreover, to the
force of her own perceptions in a long, soft
little sigh of response to the pleasant eyes
that seemed to seek her acquaintance, to

62 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

speak to her directly. " He 's quite lovely ! "
she declared to Mrs. Wix. Then eagerly,
irrepressibly, as she still held the photo-
graph and Sir Claude continued to frater-
nize, "Oh, can't I keep it?" she broke out.
No sooner had she done so than she looked
up from it at Miss Overmore — this was
with the sudden impulse to put the case to
the authority that had long ago impressed on
her that she mustn't ask for things. Miss
Overmore, to her surprise, looked distant
and rather odd, hesitating and giving her
time to turn again to Mrs. Wix. Then
Maisie saw that lady's long face lengthen.
It was stricken and almost scared, as if her
young friend really expected more of her
than she had to give. The photograph was
a possession that, direly denuded, she clung
to, and there was a momentary struggle
between her fond clutch of it and her capa-
bility of every sacrifice for her precarious
pupil. With the acuteness of her years,
however, Maisie was of the opinion that her
own avidity would triumph, and she held
out the picture to Miss Overmore as if she
were quite proud of her mother. "Isn't he
just lovely ? " she demanded, while poor Mrs.
Wix hungrily wavered, her straighteners

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 63

largely covering it and her pelisse gathered
about her with an intensity that strained
its ancient seams.

"It was to me, darling," the visitor said,
"that your mamma so generously sent it;
but of course, if it would give you particular
pleasure — ! " She faltered, only gasping
her surrender.

Miss Overmore continued extremely re-
mote. "If the photograph's your property,
my dear, I shall be happy to oblige you by
looking at it on some future occasion. But
you must excuse me if I decline to touch any
object belonging to Mrs. Wix."

Mrs. Wix, by this time, had grown very
red. " You might as well see him this way,
miss," she retorted, "as you certainly never
will, I believe, in any other! Keep the
pretty picture, by all means, my precious,"
she went on. "Sir Claude will be happy
himself, I dare say, to give me one with a
kind inscription." The pathetic quaver of
this brave little boast was not lost upon
Maisie, who threw herself so gratefully upon
Mrs. Wix's neck that, on the termination of
their embrace, the public tenderness of
which, she felt, made up for the sacrifice she
imposed, their companion had had time to

64 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

put a quick hand to Sir Claude and, with a
glance at him or not, whisk him effectually
out of sight. Released from the child's
arms Mrs. Wix looked about for the picture.
Then she fixed Miss O verm ore with a hard,
dumb stare ; and finally, with her eyes on the
little girl again, achieved the grimmest of
smiles. "Well, nothing matters, Maisie,
because there's another thing your mamma
wrote about. She has made sure of me."
Even after her loyal hug Maisie felt like a
small sneak as she glanced at Miss Overmore
for permission to understand this. But
Mrs. Wix left them in no doubt of what it
meant. "She has definitely engaged me —
for her return and for yours. Then you'll
see for yourself." Maisie, on the spot,
quite believed she should; but the pros-
pect was suddenly thrown into confusion by
an extraordinary demonstration from Miss
Overmore.

"Mrs. Wix," said that young lady, "has
some undiscoverable reason for regarding
your mother's hold on you as strengthened
by the fact that she 's about to marry. I
wonder then — on that system — what Mrs.
Wix will say to your father's."

Miss Overmore' s words were directed to

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 65

her pupil, but her face, lighted with the
irony that made it prettier even than ever
before, was presented to the dingy figure
that had stiffened itself for departure. The
child's discipline had been bewildering: it
had ranged freely between the prescription
that she was to answer when spoken to and
the experience of lively penalties on obeying
that prescription. This time, nevertheless,
she felt emboldened for risks; above all as
something still more bewildering seemed to
have leaped into her sense of the relations
of things. She raised to Miss Overmore's
face all the timidity of her eyes. " Do you
mean papa's hold on me? Do you mean
he's about to marry?"

"Papa is not about to marry; papa is
married, my dear. Papa was married the
day before yesterday at Brighton." Miss
Overmore glittered more gayly. On the
spot it came over Maisie, and quite daz-
zlingly, that her pretty governess was a
bride. "He's my husband, if you please,
and I 'm his little wife. So now we 'II see
who 's your little mother ! " She caught her
pupil to her bosom in a manner that was not
to have been outdone by the emissary of her
predecessor, and a few minutes later, when

5

66 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

things had lurched back into their places,
that poor lady, quite defeated of the last
word, had soundlessly taken flight.

VIII

AFTER Mrs. Wix's retreat, Miss Overmore
appeared to recognize that she was not
exactly in a position to denounce Ida
Farange's second union; but she drew from
a table-drawer the photograph of Sir Claude
and, standing there before Maisie, bent her
eyes on it for some moments.

"Isn't he beautiful?" the child ingenu-
ously asked.

Her companion hesitated. "No; he's
horrid ! " she, to Maisie's surprise, sharply
returned. But she looked for another minute ;
after which she handed back the picture. It
appeared to Maisie herself to exhibit a fresh
attraction, and she was embarrassed, for she
had never before had occasion to differ from
her lovely friend. So she only could ask
what, such being the case, she should do
with it : should she put it quite away —
where it wouldn't be there to offend? On
this Miss Overmore again deliberated;

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 67

then she said unexpectedly : " Put it on the
schoolroom mantelpiece."

Maisie had apprehensions. "Won't papa
dislike to see it there? "

"Very much indeed ; but that won't matter
now." Miss Overmore spoke with peculiar
significance and to her pupil's mystifi-
cation.

" On account of the marriage ? " Maisie
inquired.

Miss Overmore laughed, and Maisie could
see that in spite of the irritation produced
by Mrs. Wix she was in high spirits.
"Which marriage do you mean?"

With the question put to her it suddenly
seemed to the child that she did n't know,
and she felt that she looked foolish. So
she took refuge in saying " Shall you be
different — ?" This was a full implication
that the bride of Sir Claude would be.

" As your father's wedded wife ? Utterly ! "
Miss Overmore replied. And the difference
began, of course, in her being addressed,
even by Maisie, from that day and by her
particular request, as Mrs. Beale. It was
there indeed also that it almost ended, for
except that the child could reflect that she
should presently have four parents in all,

68 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

and also that at the end of three months the
staircase, for a little girl hanging over banis-
ters, sent up the deepening rustle of more
delicate advances, everything made the same
impression as before. Mrs. Beale had very
pretty frocks, but Miss Overmore's had been
quite as good ; and if papa was much fonder
of his second wife than he had been of his
first, Maisie had foreseen that fondness and
followed its development almost as closely
as the victim of it. There was little indeed
in the relations of her companions that her
precocious experience couldn't explain; for
if they struck her as, after all, rather defi-
cient in that air of the honeymoon of which
she had so often heard — in much detail, for
instance, from Mrs. Wix — it was natural to
judge this circumstance in the light of papa's
proved disposition to contest the empire of
the matrimonial tie. His honeymoon, when
he came back from Brighton — not on the
morrow of Mrs. Wix's visit and not, oddly,
till several days later — his honeymoon was
perhaps perceptibly tinged with the dawn of
a later stage of wedlock. There were things
as to which, for Mrs. Beale, as the child had
learnt, his dislike wouldn't matter now, and
their number increased so that such a trifle

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 69

as his hostility to the photograph of Sir
Claude quite dropped out of view. This
pleasing object found a conspicuous place in
the schoolroom, which, in truth, Mr. Farange
seldom entered and in which silent admira-
tion formed, during the time I speak of,
almost the sole scholastic exercise of Mrs.
Beale's pupil.

Maisie was not long in seeing just what
her stepmother had meant by the difference
she should show as Mrs. Beale. If she was
her father's wife she wasn't her own gover-
ness ; and if her presence had had formerly
to be made regular by the theory of a
humble function she was now on a footing
that dispensed with all theories and was
inconsistent with all servitude. That was
what she had meant by the removal of the
obstacle to a school : her small companion
was no longer required at home as — • it was
Mrs. Beale's own amusing word — a little
duenna. The objection to a successor to
Miss Overmore remained; it was composed
frankly of the fact, of which Mrs. Beale
granted the full absurdity, that she was too
awfully fond of her stepdaughter to bring
herself to see her in vulgar and mercenary
hands. The note of this particular danger

70 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

emboldened Maisie to put in a word for Mrs.
Wix, the modest measure of whose avidity
she had taken from the first; but Mrs. Beale
disposed afresh and effectually of a candidate
who would be sure to act in some horrible
and insidious way in Ida's interest and who
moreover was personally loathsome and as
ignorant as a fish. She made also no less of
a secret of the awkward fact that a good
school would be hideously expensive, and of
the further circumstance, which seemed to
put an end to everything, that when it came
to the point papa, in spite of his previous
clamor, was really most nasty about paying.
"Would you believe," Mrs. Beale confi-
dentially asked of her little charge, " that he
says I 'm a worse expense than ever and
that a daughter and a wife together are really
more than he can afford ? " It was thus that
the splendid school at Brighton lost itself in
the haze of larger questions, though the fear
that it would provoke Ida to leap into
the breach subsided with her prolonged,
her quite shameless non-appearance. Her
daughter and her successor were therefore
left to gaze in united but helpless blankness
at all that Maisie was not learning.

This quantity was so great as to fill the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 71

child's days with a sense of intermission to
which even French Lisette gave no accent
— with finished games and unanswered ques-
tions and dreaded tests; with the habit,
above all, in her watch for a change, of
hanging over banisters when the door-bell
sounded. This was the great refuge of her
impatience, but what she heard at such times
was a clatter of gayety downstairs; the
impression of which, from her earliest child-
hood, had built up in her the belief that the
grown-up time was the time of real amuse-
ment and, above all, of real intimacy. Even
Lisette, even Mrs. Wix had never, she felt,
in spite of hugs and tears, been so intimate
with her as so many persons at present were
with Mrs. Beale and as so many others of
old had been with Mrs. Farange. The note
of hilarity brought people together still
more than the note of melancholy, which
was the one exclusively sounded, for in-
stance, by poor Mrs. Wix. Maisie, in these
days, preferred none the less that domestic
revels should be wafted to her from a dis-
tance; she felt sadly unsupported for facing
the interrogatory of the drawing-room. That
was a reason the more for making the most
of Susan Ash, who, in her quality of under-

72 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

housemaid, moved at a very different level
and who, none the less, was much depended
upon out of doors. She was a guide to
peregrinations that had little in common
with those intensely definite airings that
had left with the child a vivid memory of
the regulated mind of Moddle. There were
under Moddle' s system no dawdles at shop-
windows and no nudges, in Oxford Street,
of " I say, look at *er!" There was an inex-
orable treatment of crossings and a serene
exemption from the fear that — especially at
corners, of which she was yet weakly fond —
haunted the housemaid, the fear of being,
as she ominously said, "spoken to." The
dangers of the town, equally with its diver-
sions, added to Maisie's sense of being
untutored and unclaimed.

The situation, however, had taken a twist
when, on another of her returns, at Susan's
side, extremely tired, from the pursuit of
exercise qualified by much hovering, she
encountered another emotion. She on this
occasion learnt at the door that her instant
attendance was requested in the drawing-
room. Crossing the threshold in a cloud of
shame she discerned through the blur Mrs.
Beale seated there with a gentleman who

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 73

immediately drew the pain from her predica-
ment by rising before her as the original
of the photograph of Sir Claude. She felt
the moment she looked at him that he was
by far the most radiant person with whom
she had yet been concerned ; and her pleasure
in seeing him, in knowing that he took hold
of her and kissed her, as quickly throbbed
into a strange, shy pride in him, a percep-
tion of his making up for her fallen state,
for Susan's public nudges, which quite
bruised her, and for all the lessons that, in
the dead schoolroom, where at times she was
almost afraid to stay alone, she was bored
with not having. It was as if he had told
her on the spot that he belonged to her, so
that she could already show him off and see
the effect he produced. No, nothing else
that was most beautiful that had ever
belonged to her could kindle that particular
joy — not Mrs. Beale at that very moment,
not papa when he was gay, nor mamma when
she was dressed, nor Lisette when she was
new. The joy almost overflowed in tears
when he laid his hand on her and drew her
to him, telling her, with a smile of which
the promise was as bright as that of a
Christmas-tree, that he knew her ever so

74 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

well by her mother, but had come to see her
now so that he might know her really. She
could see that his view of the way "really"
to know her was to make her come away
with him, and, further, that this was what
he was there for, and had already been some
time, arranging it with Mrs. Beale, and
getting on with that lady in a manner evi-
dently not at all affected by her having, on
the arrival of his portrait, thought of him so
ill. They had grown almost intimate — or
had the air of it — over their discussion ; and
it was still further conveyed to Maisie that
Mrs. Beale had made no secret, and would
make yet less of one, of all that it cost to let
her go. " You seem so tremendously eager,"
she said to the child, " that I hope you 're at
least clear about Sir Claude's relation to
you. It doesn't appear to occur to him to
give you the necessary reassurance. "

Maisie, a trifle mystified, turned quickly
to her new friend. "Why, it's of course
that you 're married to her, is n't it ?"

Her anxious emphasis started them off, as
she had learned to call it; this was the echo
she infallibly and now quite resignedly pro-
duced. Moreover Sir Claude's laughter was
an indistinguishable part of the sweetness of

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 75

his being there. " We 've been married, my
dear child, three months, and my interest in
you is a consequence, don't you know? of my
great affection for your mother. In coming
here it 's of course for your mother I 'm
acting."

"Oh, I know," Maisie said, with all the
candor of her competence. " She can't come
herself — except just to the door." Then as
she thought afresh: "Can't she come even
to the door now ? "

"There you are!" Mrs. Beale explained
to Sir Claude. She spoke as if his dilemma
were ludicrous.

His kind face, in a hesitation, seemed
to recognize it; but he answered the child
with a frank smile. " No — not very well. "

" Because she has married you ? "

He promptly accepted this reason. " Well,
that has a good deal to do with it. "

He was so delightful to talk to that
Maisie pursued the subject. " But papa —
he has married Miss Overmore."

"Yes, and you '11 see that he won't come
for you at your mother's," that lady inter-
posed.

"Ah, but that won't be for a long time,"
Maisie hastened to respond.

76 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"We won't talk about it now; you've
months and months to put in first." And
Sir Claude drew her closer.

" Oh, that 's what makes it so hard to give
her up ! " Mrs. Beale sighed, holding out
her arms to her stepdaughter. Maisie,
quitting Sir Claude, went over to them, and,
clasped in a still tenderer embrace, felt
entrancingly the expansion of the field of
happiness. "I'll come for you," said her
stepmother, " if Sir Claude keeps you too
long; we must make him quite understand
that! Don't talk to me about her lady-
ship!" she went on, to their visitor, so
familiarly that it was almost as if they must
have met before. "I know her ladyship as
if I had made her. They 're a pretty pair of
parents ! " Mrs. Beale exclaimed.

Maisie had so often heard them called so
that the remark diverted her but an instant
from the agreeable wonder of this grand new
form of allusion to her mother ; and that, in
its turn, presently left her free to catch at
the pleasant possibility, in connection with
herself, of a relation much happier, as be-
tween Mrs. Beale and Sir Claude than as
between mamma and papa. Still the next
thing that happened was that her interest

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

77

in such a relation brougnt to her lips a fresh
question. "Have you seen papa?" she
asked of Sir Claude.

It was the signal for their going off again,
as her small stoicism had perfectly taken for
granted that it would be. All that Mrs.
Beale had, nevertheless, to add was the
vague apparent sarcasm : " Oh, papa ! "

"I'm assured he's not at home," Sir
Claude replied to the child; "but if he had
been I should have hoped for the pleasure
of seeing him."

"Won't he mind your coming?" Maisie
went on.

"Oh, you bad little girl!" Mrs. Beale
humorously protested.

The child could see that at this Sir
Claude, though still moved to mirth, colored
a little; but he spoke to her very kindly.
"That 's just what I came to see, you know
— whether your father would mind. But
Mrs. Beale appears strongly of the opinion
that he won't."

This lady promptly justified her opinion
to her stepdaughter. " It will be very inter-
esting, my dear, you know, to find out what
it is, to-day, that your father does mind.
I 'm sure / don't know ! " And she repeated,

78 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

though with perceptible resignation, her
sigh of a moment before. "Your father,
darling, is a very odd person indeed." She
turned with this, smiling, to Sir Claude.
"But perhaps it 's hardly civil for me to say
that of his not objecting to have you in the
house. If you knew some of the people he
does have ! "

Maisie knew them all, and none indeed
were to be compared to Sir Claude. He
laughed back at Mrs. Beale: he looked at
such moments quite as Mrs. Wix, in the
long stories she told her pupil, always de-
scribed the lovers of her distressed beauties
— " the perfect gentleman and strikingly
handsome." He got up, to the child's
regret, as if he were going. "Oh, I dare
say we should be all right ! "

Mrs. Beale once more gathered in her
little charge, holding her close and looking
thoughtfully over her head at their visitor.
"It 's so charming — for a man of your type
— to have wanted her so much ! "

" What do you know about my type ? " Sir
Claude inquired. "Whatever it may be, I
dare say it deceives you. The truth about
me is simply that I 'm the most unappreciated
of — what do you call the fellows? * family

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 79

men.' Yes, I 'm a family man; upon my
honor I am ! "

"Then why on earth," cried Mrs. Beale,
"didn't you marry a family woman?"

Sir Claude looked at her hard. " You
know whom one marries, I think. Besides,
there are no family women — hanged if there
are! None of them want any children —
hanged if they do!"

His account of the matter was most inter-
esting, and Maisie, a's if it were of bad omen
for her, stared at the picture in some dismay.
At the same time she felt, through encircling
arms, her protectress hesitate. "You do
come out with things ! But you mean her
ladyship doesn't want any — really?"

"Won't hear of them — simply. But she
can't help the one she has got." And with
this Sir Claude's eyes rested on the little
girl in a way that seemed to her to mask her
mother's attitude with the consciousness of
her own. " She must make the best of her,
don't you see? If only for the look of the
thing, don't you know, one wants one's wife
to take the proper line about her child."

" Oh, I know what one wants ! " Mrs.
Beale declared with a competence that evi-
dently impressed her interlocutor.

8o WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" Well, if you keep him up — and I dare
say you've had worry enough — why should n't
I keep Ida? What 's sauce for the goose is
sauce for the gander — or the other way
round, don't you know ? I mean to see the
thing through."

Mrs. Beale, for a minute, still with her
eyes on him as he leaned upon the chimney-
piece, appeared to turn this over. " You 're
just a wonder of kindness — that 's what you
are ! " she said at last. " A lady 's expected
to have natural feelings. But your horrible
sex — isn't it a horrible sex, little love?"
she demanded with her cheek upon her
step-daughter's.

"Oh, I like gentlemen best," Maisie
lucidly replied.

The words were taken up merrily. " That 's
a good one for you ! " Sir Claude exclaimed
to Mrs. Beale.

"No," said that lady; "I 've only to re-
member the women she sees at her mother's. "

"Ah, they 're very nice now," Sir Claude
returned.

"What do you call nice?"

"Well, they 're all right."

"That doesn't answer me," said Mrs.
Beale ; " but I dare say you do take care of

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 81

them. That makes you more of an angel to
want this job too." She playfully whacked
her smaller companion.

"I'm not an angel — I'm an old grand-
mother," Sir Claude declared; "I like babies;
I always did. If we go to smash I shall
look for a place as a ' responsible nurse. ' "

Maisie, in her charmed mood, drank in an
imputation on her years which at another
moment might have been bitter; but the
charm was sensibly interrupted by Mrs.
Beale's screwing her round and gazing
fondly into her eyes. "You're willing to
leave me, you wretch ? "

The little girl deliberated ; even her
attachment to this bright presence had
become as a cord she must suddenly snap.
But she snapped it very gently. " Is n't it
my turn for mamma ? "

" You 're a horrible little hypocrite ! The
less, I think, now said about ' turns ' the
better," Mrs. Beale made answer, "/know
whose turn it is. You 've not such a passion
for your mother ! "

"I say, I say: do look out!" Sir Claude
quite amiably protested.

"There 's nothing she has n't heard. But
it does n't matter — it has n't spoiled her. If
6

82 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

you knew what it costs me to part with
you ! " she went on to Maisie.

Sir Claude watched her as she charmingly
clung to the child. "I'm so glad you really
care for her. That 's so much to the good."

Mrs. Beale slowly got up, still with her
hands on Maisie, but emitting a little soft
exhalation. "Well, if you 're glad, that may
help us ; for I assure you I shall never give
up any rights in her I may consider that,
by my own sacrifices, I 've acquired. I
shall hold very fast to my interest in her.
What seems to have happened is that she
has brought you and me together."

" She has brought you and me together, "
said Sir Claude.

The cheerfulness of his assent to this
proposition was contagious, and Maisie
broke out almost with enthusiasm: "I've
brought you and her together!"

Her companions, of course, laughed anew,
and Mrs. Beale gave her an affectionate
shake. "You little monster — take care
what you do! But that's what she does
do," she continued to Sir Claude. "She did
it to me and Beale."

"Well, then," he said to Maisie, "you
must try the trick at our place." He held

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 83

out his hand to her again. "Will you come
now? "

" Now — just as I am ? " She turned with
an immense appeal to her stepmother, tak-
ing a leap over the mountain of "mending,"
the abyss of packing, that had loomed and
yawned before her. " Oh, may I ? "

Mrs. Beale addressed her assent to Sir
Claude. "As well so as any other way.
I'll send on her things to-morrow." Then
she gave a tug to the child's coat, glancing
at her up and down with some ruefulness.
"She's not turned out as I should like;
her mother will pull her to pieces. But
what 's one to do — with nothing to do it on?
And she 's better than when she came — you
can tell her mother that. I 'm sorry to have
to say it to you — but the poor child was a
sight ! "

" Oh, I '11 turn her out myself ! " the vis-
itor cordially announced.

" I shall like to see how ! " — Mrs. Beale
appeared much amused. "You must bring
her to show me — we can manage that.
Good-bye, little fright." And her last word
to Sir Claude was that she would keep him
up to the mark.

84 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

IX

THE idea of what she was to make up and
the prodigious total to come were kept well
before Maisie at her mother's. These things
were the constant occupation of Mrs. Wix,
who arrived there by the back-stairs, but in
tears of joy, the day after her own arrival.
The process of making up, as to which the
good lady had an immense deal to say, took,
through its successive phases, so long that it
promised to be a period at least equal to the
child's last period with her father. But this
was a fuller and richer time; it bounded
along to the tune of Mrs. Wix's constant
insistence on the energy they must both put
forth. There was a fine intensity in the
way the child agreed with her that under
Mrs. Beale and Susan Ash she had learned
nothing whatever — the wildness of the
rescued castaway was one of the forces
that would henceforth make for her a career
of conquest. The year therefore rounded
itself as a receptacle of retarded knowledge,
a cup brimming over with the sense that
now, at least, she was learning. Mrs. Wix
fed this sense from the stores of her conver-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 85

sation and with the immense bustle of her
reminder that they 'must cull the fleeting
hour. They were surrounded with subjects
they must take at a rush and were perpetu-
ally getting into the attitude of triumphant
attack. They had certainly no idle hours,
and the child went to bed each night as from
a long day's play. This had begun from
the moment of their reunion — begun with
all Mrs. Wix had to tell her young friend of
the reasons of her ladyship's extraordinary
behavior at the very first.

It took the form of her ladyship's refusal
for three days to see her child — three days,
during which Sir Claude made hasty, merry
dashes into the schoolroom to smooth down
the odd situation, to say, "She'll come
round, you know; I assure you, she '11 come
round," and a little even to make up to
Maisie for the indignity he had caused her
to suffer. There had never, in the child's
life, been, in all ways, such a delightful
amount of reparation. It came out by his
sociable admission that her ladyship had not
known of his visit to her late husband's
house and of his having made that person's
daughter a pretext for striking up an ac-
quaintance with the dreadful creature in-

86 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

stalled there. Heaven knew she wanted
her child back and had made every plan
of her own for removing her — what she
could n't, for the present at least, forgive any
one concerned was the meddling, underhand
way in which Sir Claude had brought about
the transfer. Maisie carried more of the
weight of this resentment than even Mrs.
Wix's confidential ingenuity could lighten
for her; especially as Sir Claude himself
was not at all ingenious, though indeed, on
the other hand, he was not at all crushed.
He was amused and intermittent and at
moments most startling; he brought out to
his young companion, with a frankness that
agitated her much more than he seemed to
guess, that he depended on her not letting
her mother, when she should see her, get
anything out of her about anything Mrs.
Beale might have said to him. He came in
and out; he professed, in joke, to take tre-
mendous precautions; he showed a positive
disposition to romp. He chaffed Mrs. Wix
till she was purple with the pleasure of it,
and reminded Maisie of the reticence he
expected of her till she set her teeth like
an Indian captive. Her lessons, these first
days and indeed for long after, seemed to be

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 87

all about Sir Claude; and yet she never
really mentioned to Mrs. Wix that she was
prepared, under his inspiring injunction, to
be vainly tortured. This lady, however, had
formulated the position of things with an
acuteness that showed how little she needed
to be coached. Her explanations of every-
thing that seemed not quite pleasant — and
if her own footing was perilous it met that
danger as well — was that her ladyship was
passionately in love. Maisie accepted this
hint with infinite awe and pressed upon it
much when she was at last summoned into
the presence of her mother.

There she encountered matters in which it
seemed really to help to give her a clew —
an almost terrifying strangeness, full, none
the less, after a little, of reverberations of
Ida's old fierce, demonstrative recoveries of
possession. They had been some time in
the house together, and this demonstration
came late; preoccupied, however, as Maisie
was with the idea of the sentiment Sir
Claude had inspired, and familiar, in addi-
tion, by Mrs. Wix's anecdotes, with the
ravages that, in general, such a sentiment
could produce, she was able to make allow-
ances for her ladyship's remarkable appear-

88 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

ance, her violent splendor, the wonderful
color of her lips, and even the hard stare,
like that of some gorgeous idol described in
a story-book, that had come into her eyes in
consequence of a curious thickening of their
already rich circumference. Her professions
and explanations were mixed with eager
challenges and sudden drops, in the midst
of which Maisie recognized, as a memory of
other years, the rattle of her trinkets and
the scratch of her endearments, the odor of
her clothes and the jumps of her conversa-
tion. She had all her old, clever way —
Mrs. Wix said it was " aristocratic " — of
changing the subject as she might have
slammed the door in your face. The prin-
cipal thing that was different was the tint
of her golden hair, which had changed to a
coppery red and, with the head it profusely
covered, struck the child as now lifted still
further aloft. This picturesque parent showed
literally a grander stature and an ampler
presence; things which, with some others
that might have been bewildering, were
handsomely accounted for by the romantic
state of her affections. It was her affections,
Maisie could easily see, that led Ida to break
out into questions as to what had passed,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 89

at the other house, between that horrible
woman and Sir Claude ; but it was also just
here that the little girl was able to recall the
effect with which, in earlier days, she had
practised the pacific art of stupidity. This
art again came to her aid; her mother, in
getting rid of her after an interview in which
she had achieved a vacancy beyond her years,
allowed her fully to understand that she had
not grown a bit more amusing.

She could bear that — she could bear any-
thing that helped her to feel that she had
done something for Sir Claude. If she had n't
told Mrs. Wix how Mrs. Beale seemed to
like him she certainly could n't tell her lady-
ship. In the way the past revived for her
there was a queer confusion : it was because
mamma hated papa that she used to want
to know bad things of him, and if at present
she wanted to know the same of Sir Claude
it was quite from the opposite motive. She
was awestruck at the manner in which a lady
might be affected through the passion men-
tioned by Mrs. Wix: she held her breath
with the sense of picking her steps among
the tremendous things of life. What she
did, however, now, after the interview with
her mother, impart to Mrs. Wix was that

90 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

in spite of her having had her " good "
effect, as she called it, her ladyship's last
words had been that her ladyship's duty by
her would be thoroughly done. Over this
announcement governess and pupil looked
at each other in silent profundity; but, as
the weeks went by, it had no consequences
that interfered gravely with the breezy gallop
of making up. Her ladyship's duty took
at times the form of not seeing her child
for days together, and Maisie led her life
in great prosperity between Mrs. Wix and
kind Sir Claude. Mrs. Wix had a new dress
and, as she was the first to proclaim, a better
position ; so it all struck Maisie as a crowded,
brilliant life, with, for the time, Mrs. Beale
and Susan Ash simply " left out " like chil-
dren not invited to a Christmas party. Mrs.
Wix had a secret terror, which, like most
of her secret feelings, she discussed with
her little companion, in great solemnity, by
the hour — the possibility of her ladyship's
coming down on them, in her sudden high-
bred way, with a school. But she had also
a balm to this fear in a conviction of the
strength of Sir Claude's grasp of the situ-
ation. He was too pleased — did n't he
constantly say as much? — with the good

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 91

impression made, in a wide circle, by Ida's
sacrifices ; and he came into the schoolroom
repeatedly to let them know how beautifully
he felt everything had gone off and every-
thing would go on.

He disappeared at times for days, when
his patient friends understood that her lady-
ship would naturally absorb him; but he
always came back with the drollest stories
of where he had been — a wonderful picture
of society, and even with pretty presents
that showed how, in absence, he thought of
his home. Besides giving Mrs. Wix, by his
conversation, a sense that they almost them-
selves " went out/' he gave her a five-pound
note, and the history of France, and an
umbrella with a malachite knob ; and to
Maisie both chocolate-creams and story-
books and a lovely great-coat (which he
took her out all alone to buy), besides ever
so many games, in boxes, with printed direc-
tions, and a bright red frame for the protec-
tion of his famous photograph. The games
were, as he said, to while away the evening
hour, and the evening hour indeed often
passed in futile attempts on Mrs. Wix's part
to master what " it said " on the papers.
When he asked the pair how they liked

92 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

the games they always replied " Oh, im-
mensely ! " but they had earnest discussions
as to whether they had n't better appeal to
him frankly for aid to understand them.
This was a course their delicacy shrank
from ; they could n't have told exactly why,
but it was a part of their tenderness for him
not to let him think they had trouble.
What dazzled most was his kindness to
Mrs. Wix — not only the five-pound note
and the " not forgetting her," but the perfect
consideration, as she called it with an air to
which her sounding of the words gave the
only grandeur Maisie was to have seen her
wear save on a certain occasion hereafter
to be described — an occasion when the poor
lady was grander than all of them put to-
gether. He shook hands with her, he rec-
ognized her, as she said, and, above all,
more than once, he took her, with his step-
daughter, to the pantomime and, in the
crowd, coming out, publicly gave her his
arm. When he met them in sunny Picca-
dilly he made merry and turned and walked
with them, heroically suppressing his con-
sciousness of the stamp of his company; a
gallantry that — needless for Mrs. Wix to
sound those words — her ladyship, though

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 93

a blood-relation/was little enough the woman
to be capable of. Even to the hard heart
of childhood there was something tragic in
such elation at such humanities : it brought
home to Maisie the way her humble com-
panion had sidled and ducked through life.
But it settled the question of the degree to
which Sir Claude was a gentleman : he was
more of one than anybody else in the
world — " I don't care," Mrs. Wix repeatedly
remarked, "whom you may meet in grand
society, nor even to whom you may be
contracted in marriage." There were ques-
tions that Maisie never asked, so her gover-
ness was spared the embarrassment of telling
her if he were more of a gentleman than papa ;
that was not moreover from the want of oppor-
tunity, for there were no moments between
them at which the topic could be irrelevant
— no subject they were going into, not even
the principal dates or the auxiliary verbs, in
which it was further off than the turn of the
page. The answer, on the winter nights, to
the puzzle of cards and counters and little be-
wildering pamphlets was just to draw up to the
fire and talk about him ; and if the truth must
be told this edifying interchange constituted
for the time the little girl's chief education.

94 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

It must also be admitted that he took
them far — further perhaps than was always
warranted by the old-fashioned conscience,
the dingy decencies of Maisie's simple in-
structress. There were hours when Mrs.
Wix sighingly testified to the scruples she
surmounted — seemed to ask what other line
one could take with a young person whose
experience had been, as it were, so peculiar.
" It is n't as if you did n't already know
everything, is it, love?" and " I can't make
you any worse than you are, can I, darling? "
— these were the terms in which the good
lady justified to herself and her pupil her
pleasant conversational ease. What the pupil
already knew was indeed rather taken for
granted than expressed, but it performed
the useful function of transcending all text-
books, and supplanting all studies. If the
child could n't be worse it was a comfort
even to herself that she was bad — a comfort
offering a broad, firm support to the funda-
mental fact of the present crisis, the fact
that mamma was fearfully jealous. This
was another side of the circumstance of
mamma's passion, and the deep couple in
the schoolroom were not long in working
round to it. It brought them face to face

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 95

with the idea of the inconvenience suffered
by any lady who marries a gentleman pro-
ducing on other ladies the charming effect of
Sir Claude. That such ladies would freely
fall in love with him was a reflection naturally
irritating to his wife. One day when some
accident — some report of a banged door
or some scurry of a scared maid — had
rendered this truth particularly vivid Maisie,
receptive and profound, suddenly said to her
companion : " And you, my dear, are you
in love with him too ? "

Even her profundity had left a margin
for a laugh; so she was a trifle startled by
the solemn promptitude with which Mrs.
Wix plumped out : " Over head and ears.
I've never — since you ask me — been so
far gone."

This boldness had none the less no effect
of deterrence for her when, a few days later
— it was because several had elapsed with-
out a visit from Sir Claude — her governess
turned the tables. " May I ask you, miss,
if you are?" Mrs. Wix brought it out, she
could see, with hesitation, but clearly intend-
ing a joke. " Why, yes ! " the child made
answer, as if in surprise at not having long
ago seemed sufficiently to commit herself;

96 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

on which her friend gave a sigh of appar-
ent satisfaction. It might in fact have ex-
pressed positive relief. Everything was as it
should be.

Yet it was not with them, they were very
sure, that her ladyship was furious, nor be-
cause she had forbidden it that there befell at
last a period — six months brought it round
• — when for days together he scarcely came
near them. He was " off" and Ida was "off,"
and they were sometimes " off" together and
sometimes apart. There were seasons when
the simple students had the house to them-
selves, when the very servants seemed also to
be " off" and dinner became a reckless forage
in pantries and sideboards. Mrs. Wix re-
minded her disciple on such occasions —
hungry moments, often, when all the support
of the reminder was required — that the " real
life" of their companions, the brilliant society
in which it was inevitable they should move
and the complicated pleasures in which it
was almost presumptuous of the mind to fol-
low them, must offer features literally not to
be imagined without being seen. At one of
these times Maisie found her opening it out
that, though the difficulties were many, it was
Mrs. Beale who had now become the chief.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 97

Then, somehow, it was brought fully to the
child's knowledge that her stepmother had
been making attempts to see her; that her
mother had deeply resented it; that her
stepfather had backed her stepmother up ;
that the latter had pretended to be acting as
the representative of her father ; and that her
mother took the whole thing, in plain terms,
very hard. The situation was, as Mrs. Wix
declared, an extraordinary muddle to be
sure. Her account of it brought back to
Maisie the happy vision of the way Sir
Claude and Mrs. Beale had made acquain-
tance — an incident to which, with her step-
father, though she had had little to say about
it to Mrs. Wix, she had during the first
weeks of her stay at her mother's found
more than one opportunity to revert. As to
what had taken place the day Sir Claude
came for her, she had been vaguely grateful
to Mrs. Wix for not attempting, as her mother
had attempted, to put her through. This was
what Sir Claude had called the process when
he warned her of it and again, afterwards,
when he told her she was an awfully good
chap for having foiled it. Then it was that,
well aware Mrs. Beale had n't in the least
really given her up, she had asked him if he
7

98 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

remained in communication with her and if,
for the time, everything must really be held
to be at an end between her stepmother and
herself. This conversation had occurred in
consequence of his one day popping into the
schoolroom and finding Maisie alone.

HE was smoking a cigarette and he stood
before the fire and looked at the meagre
appointments of the room in a way that
made her rather ashamed of them. Then
before, on the subject of Mrs. Beale, he let
her " draw " him — that was another of his
words ; it was astonishing how many she gath-
ered in — he remarked that really mamma
kept them rather low on the question of
decorations. Mrs. Wix had put up a Japa-
nese fan and two rather grim Texts — she
had wished they were gayer, but they were
all she happened to have. Without Sir
Claude's photograph, however, the place
would have been, as he said, as dull as a cold
dinner. He had said as well that there were
all sorts of things they ought to have ; yet
governess and pupil, it had to be admitted,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 99

were still divided between discussing the
places where any sort of thing would look
best if any sort of thing should ever come,
and acknowledging that mutability in the
little girl's career which was naturally un-
favorable to accumulation. She stayed long
enough only to miss things — not half long
enough to deserve them. The way Sir
Claude looked about the schoolroom had
made her feel with humility as if it were not
very different from the shabby attic in which
she had visited Susan Ash. Then he had
said in abrupt reference to Mrs. Beale : " Do
you think she really cares for you? "

" Oh, awfully ! " Maisie had replied.

" But I mean does she love you for your-
self, as they call it, don't you know? Is she
as fond of you, now, as Mrs. Wix?"

The child turned it over. " Oh, I 'm not
every bit Mrs. Beale has ! "

Sir Claude seemed much amused at this.
" No, you 're not every bit she has ! "

He laughed for some moments ; but that
was an old story to Maisie, and she was not
too much disconcerted to go on : " But she '11
never give me up."

" Well, I won't either, old boy ; so that 's
not so wonderful, and she 's not the only one !

ioo WHAT MAISIE KNEW

But if she 's so fond of you, why does n't she
write to you?"

" Oh, on account of mamma." This was
rudimentary, and she was almost surprised at
the simplicity of Sir Claude's question.

"I see — that's quite right," he answered.
" She might get at you — there are all sorts
of ways ; but, of course, there 's Mrs. Wix."

" There 's Mrs. Wix," Maisie lucidly con-
curred. " Mrs. Wix can't endure her."

Sir Claude seemed interested. " Oh, she
can't endure her? Then what does she say
about her?"

" Nothing at all, because she knows I
should n't like it. Is n't it sweet of her ? " the
child asked.

" Certainly, rather nice. Mrs. Beale would n't
hold her tongue for any such thing as that,
would she? "

Maisie remembered how little she had done
so; but she desired to protect Mrs. Beale
too. The only protection she could think of,
however, was the plea: "Oh, at papa's, you
know, they don't mind."

At this Sir Claude only smiled. " No ; I
dare say not. But here we mind, don't we?
— we take care what we say. I don't sup-
pose it 's the sort of thing I ought to say,"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 101

he went on; "but I think we must, on the
whole, be rather nicer here than at your
father's. However, I don't press that; for
it 's a sort of question on which it 's awfully
awkward for you to speak. Don't worry, at
any rate; I assure you I'll back you up."
Then, after a moment, while he smoked, he
reverted to Mrs. Beale and the child's first
inquiry. " I 'm afraid we can't do much for
her just now. I have n't seen her since that
day — upon my word I have n't seen her."
The next instant, with a laugh the least bit
foolish, the young man slightly colored ; he
felt this profession of innocence to be exces-
sive as addressed to Maisie. It was inevi-
table to say to her, however, that of course
her mother loathed the lady of the other
house. He could n't go there again with his
wife's consent, and he was n't the man — he
begged her to believe, falling once more, in
spite of himself, into the scruple of showing
the child he did n't trip — to go there without
it. He was liable in talking with her to
take the tone of her being also a man of the
world. He had gone to Mrs. Beale's to get
possession of her ; but that was entirely dif-
ferent. Now that she was in her mother's
house, what pretext had he to give her

102 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

mother for paying calls on her father's wife?
And of course Mrs. Beale could n't come to
Ida's — Ida would tear her limb from limb.
Maisie, with this talk of pretexts, remembered
how much Mrs. Beale had made of her being
a good one, and how, for such a function,
it was her fate to be either much depended
on or much missed. Sir Claude moreover
recognized on this occasion that perhaps
things would take a turn later on, and he
wound up by saying: " I 'm sure she does
sincerely care for you — how can she possi-
bly help it? She's very young and very
pretty and very clever ; I think she 's charm-
ing. But we must walk very straight. If
you '11 help me, you know, I '11 help you" he
concluded in the pleasant fraternizing, equal-
izing, not a bit patronizing way which made
the child ready to go through anything for
him, and the beauty of which, as she dimly
felt, was that it was not a deceitful descent to
her years, but a real indifference to them.

It gave her moments of secret rapture —
moments of believing she might help him in-
deed. The only mystification in this was the
imposing time of life that her elders spoke of
as youth. For Sir Claude then Mrs. Beale
was " young," just as for Mrs. Wix Sir Claude

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

103

was: that was one of the merits for which
Mrs. Wix most commended him. What
therefore was Maisie herself? and, in another
relation to the matter, what therefore was
mamma? It took her some time to puzzle
out, with the aid of an experiment or two,
that it would n't do to talk about mamma's
youth. She even went so far one day, in
the presence of that lady's thick color and
marked lines, as to wonder if it would occur
to any one but herself to do so. Yet if she
was n't young, then she was old, and this threw
an odd light on her having a husband of a dif-
ferent generation. Mr. Farange was still older
— that Maisie perfectly knew ; and it brought
her in due course to the perception of how
much more, since Mrs. Beale was younger
than Sir Claude, papa must be older than
Mrs. Beale. Such discoveries were discon-
certing and even a trifle confounding: these
persons, it appeared, were not of the age they
ought to be. This was somehow particularly
the case with mamma, and the fact made her
reflect with some relief on her not having
gone with Mrs. Wix into the question of Sir
Claude's attachment to his wife. She was
conscious that in confining their attention to
the state of her ladyship's own affections they

104 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

had been controlled — Mrs. Wix perhaps in
especial — by delicacy and even by embar-
rassment. The end of her colloquy with
her stepfather in the schoolroom was her
saying, —

" Then if we 're not to see Mrs. Beale at
all, it is n't what she seemed to think when
you came for me."

He looked rather blank. " What did she
seem to think?"

" Why, that I Ve brought you together."

" She thought that?" Sir Claude inquired.

Maisie was surprised at his already for-
getting it. " Just as I brought papa and her.
Don't you remember she said so?"

It came back to Sir Claude in a peal of
laughter. " Oh, yes — she said so ! "

" And you said so," Maisie lucidly pursued.

He recovered with increasing mirth the
whole occasion. " And you said so ! " he
retorted as if they were playing a game.

"Then were we all mistaken?" the child
asked.

He considered a little. "No; on the
whole not. I dare say it's just what you
have done. We are together — in an extra-
ordinary sort of way. She 's thinking of us,
of you and me, though we don't meet. And

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 105

I Ve no doubt you '11 find it will be all right
when you go back to her/'

"Am I going back to her?" Maisie
brought out with a little gasp which was
like a sudden clutch of the happy present.

It appeared to make Sir Claude grave a
moment; it might have made him feel the
weight of the pledge his action had given.
" Oh, some day, I suppose! We've lots of
time."

" I Ve such a tremendous lot to make up,"
Maisie said with a sense of great boldness.

" Certainly ; and you must make up every
hour of it. Oh, I '11 see that you do ! "

This was encouraging, and to show cheer-
fully that she was reassured she replied:
"That's what Mrs. Wix sees too."

" Oh, yes," said Sir Claude ; " Mrs. Wix
and I are shoulder to shoulder."

Maisie took in a little this strong image ;
after which she exclaimed : " Then I 've done
it also to you and her — I Ve brought you
together."

" Blest if you have n't ! " Sir Claude
laughed ; " and more, upon my word, than any
of the lot. Oh, you Ve done for us ! Now,
if you could — as I suggested, you know, that
day — only manage me and your mother! "

io6 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

The child wondered. " Bring you and her
together?"

" You see we 're not together — not a bit !
But I ought n't to tell you such things, all
the more that you won't really do it — not
you ! No, old chap," the young man con-
tinued ; " there you '11 break down. But it
won't matter — we'll rub along. The great
thing is that you and I are all right."

" We 're all right ! " Maisie echoed de-
voutly. But the next moment, in the light
of what he had just said, she asked : " How
shall I ever leave you?" It was just as if
she must somehow take care of him.

His look did justice to her anxiety. " Oh,
well, you need n't. It won't come to that."

" Do you mean that when I go you '11 go
with me?"

Sir Claude hesitated. " Not exactly ' with '
you, perhaps ; but I shall never be far off."

" But how do you know where mamma
may take you?"

He laughed again. " I don't, I confess ! "
Then he had an idea, but it seemed a little
too jocose. " That will be for you to see,
that she sha'n't take me too far."

" How can I help it?" Maisie inquired in
surprise. " Mamma does n't care for me,"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 107

she said very simply; "not really." Child
as she was, her little long history was in the
words, and it was as impossible to contradict
her as if she had been venerable.

Sir Claude's silence was an admission of
this, and still more the tone in which he
presently replied : " That won't prevent her
from — some time or other — leaving me
with you."

"Then we'll live together?" she eagerly
demanded.

" I 'm afraid," said Sir Claude, smiling,
" that that will be Mrs. Beale's real chance."

Her eagerness just slightly dropped at this ;
she remembered Mrs. Wix's pronouncement
that it was all an extraordinary muddle. " To
take me again? Well, can't you come to see
me there?"

" Oh, I dare say."

Though there were parts of childhood
Maisie had lost, she had all childhood's pref-
erence for the particular promise. " Then you
will come — you '11 come often, won't you? "
she insisted, while at the moment she spoke
the door opened for the return of Mrs. Wix.

Sir Claude, hereupon, instead of replying,
gave her a look which left her silent and
embarrassed.

io8 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

When he again found privacy consistent,
however — and it happened to be long in
coming — he took up their conversation
very much where it had dropped. " You
see, my dear, if I shall be able to go to you
at your father's, it is n't at all the same thing
for Mrs. Beale to come to you here." Maisie
gave a thoughtful assent to this proposition,
though conscious that she could scarcely
herself say just where the difference would
lie. She felt how much her stepfather saved
her, as he said with his habitual amusement,
the trouble of that. " I shall probably be
able to go to Mrs. Beale's without your
mother's knowing it."

Maisie stared with a certain thrill at the
dramatic element in this. " And she could n't
come here without mamma's — ? " She was
unable to articulate the word for what mamma
would do.

" My dear child, Mrs. Wix would tell of it."

"But I thought," Maisie objected, " that
Mrs. Wix and you — "

"Are such brothers in arms?" Sir Claude
caught her up. " Oh, yes, about everything
but Mrs. Beale. And if you should suggest,"
he went on, "that we might somehow hide
her presence here from Mrs. Wix — "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 109

" Oh, I don't suggest that ! " Maisie in
turn cut him short.

Sir Claude looked as if he could indeed
quite see why. " No ; it would really be
impossible." There came to her from this
glance at what they might hide the first
small glimpse of something in him that she
would n't have expected. There had been
times when she had had to make the best
of the impression that she herself was deceit-
ful; yet she had never concealed anything
bigger than a thought. Of course she now
concealed this thought of how strange it
would be to see him hide; and while she
was so actively engaged he continued : " Be-
sides, you know, I 'm not afraid of your
father."

" And you are of my mother?"

" Rather, old man ! " Sir Claude replied.

XI

IT must not be supposed that her lady-
ship's intermissions were not qualified by
demonstrations of another order — triumphal
entries and breathless pauses, during which
she seemed to take of everything in the

no WHAT MAISIE KNEW

room, from the state of the ceiling to that
of her daughter's boot-toes, a survey that was
rich in intentions. Sometimes she sat down
and sometimes she surged about, but her
attitude wore equally in either case the
grand air of the practical. She found so
much to deplore that she left a great deal
to expect, and bristled so with calculations
that she seemed to scatter remedies and
pledges. Her visits were as good as an
outfit — her manner, as Mrs. Wix once said,
as good as a pair of curtains; but she was
a person addicted to extremes, sometimes
barely speaking to her child and sometimes
pressing this tender shoot to a bosom cut,
as Mrs. Wix had also observed, remarkably
low. She was always in a fearful hurry, and
the lower the bosom was cut the more it
was to be gathered she was wanted else-
where. She usually broke in alone, but
sometimes Sir Claude was with her, and dur-
ing all the early period there was nothing
on which these appearances had had so de-
lightful a bearing as On the way her ladyship
was, as Mrs. Wix expressed it, under the
spell. "But isn't she under it?" Maisie
used in thoughtful but familiar reference to
exclaim after Sir Claude had swept mamma

WHAT MAISIE KNEW in

away in peals of natural laughter. Not even
in the old days of the convulsed ladies had
she heard mamma laugh so freely as in these
moments of conjugal surrender, to the gayety
of which even a little girl could see she had
at last a right — a little girl whose thought-
fulness was now all happy, selfish meditation
on good omens and future fun.

Unaccompanied, in subsequent hours, and
with an effect of changing to meet a change,
Ida took a tone superficially disconcerting
and abrupt — the tone of having, at an im-
mense cost, made over everything to Sir
Claude and wishing others to know that if
everything was n't right it was because Sir
Claude was so dreadfully vague. " He has
made from the first such a row about you,"
she said on one occasion to Maisie, "that
I 've told him to do for you himself and try
how he likes it — see ? I 've washed my
hands of you, I 've made you over to him ;
and if you 're discontented it 's on him, please,
you '11 come down. So don't haul poor me
up — I assure you I 've worries enough."
One of these, visibly, was that the spell re-
joiced in by the schoolroom fire was already
in danger of breaking ; another was that she
was finally forced to make no secret of her

ii2 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

husband's unfitness for real responsibilities.
The day came indeed when her breathless
auditors learned from her in bewilderment
that what ailed him was that he was, alas !
simply not serious. Maisie wept on Mrs.
Wix's bosom after hearing that Sir Claude
was a butterfly; considering 'moreover that
her governess patched it up but ill in coming
out at various moments the next few days
with the opinion that it was proper to his
station to be light and gay. That had been
proper to every one's station that she had
yet encountered save poor Mrs. Wix's own ;
and the particular merit of Sir Claude had
seemed precisely that he was different from
every one. She talked with him, how-
ever, as time went on, very freely about her
mother; being with him, in this relation,
wholly without the fear that had kept her
silent before her father — the fear of bearing
tales and making bad things worse. He
appeared to accept the idea that he had
taken her over and made her, as he said, his
particular lark; he quite agreed also that
he was an awful humbug and an idle beast
and a sorry dunce. And he never said a
word to her against her mother — he only
remained dumb and discouraged in the face

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 113

of her ladyship's own overtopping earnest-
ness. There were occasions when he even
spoke as if he had wrenched his little charge
from the arms of a parent who had fought
for her tooth and nail.

This was the very moral of a scene that
flashed into vividness one day when the
four happened to meet, without company, in
the drawing-room, and Maisie found herself
clutched to her mother's breast and passion-
ately sobbed and shrieked over, made the
subject of a demonstration that evidently
formed the sequel to a sharp passage en-
acted just before. The connection required
that, while she almost cradled the child in
her arms, Ida should speak of her as hid-
eously, as fatally estranged, and should rail
at Sir Claude as the cruel author of the
outrage. " He has taken you from me,"
she cried ; " he has set you against me,
and you Ve been won away, and your hor-
rid little mind has been poisoned ! You Ve
gone over to him, you Ve given yourself
up, to side against me and hate me. You
never open your mouth to me — you know
you don't; and you chatter to him like a
dozen magpies. Don't lie about it — I hear
you all over the place. You hang about him
8

ii4 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

in a way that 's barely decent, and he can do
what he likes with you. Well then, let him
to his heart's content ; he has been in such a
hurry to take you that we '11 see if it suits
him to keep you ! I 'm very good to break
my heart about it when you Ve no more
feeling for me than a clammy little fish ! "
She suddenly thrust the child away and, as
a disgusted admission of failure, sent her
flying across the room into the arms of Mrs.
Wix, whom, at this moment and even in
the whirl of her transit, Maisie saw, very
red, exchange a quick queer look with Sir
Claude.

The impression of the look remained with
her, confronting her with such a critical little
view of her mother's explosion that she felt
the less ashamed of herself for incurring the
reproach with which she had been cast off.
Her father had once called her a heartless
little beast, and now, though decidedly scared,
she was as stiff and cold as if the description
had been just. She was not even frightened
enough to cry, which would have been a
tribute to her mother's wrongs^ she was
only, more than anything else, curious about
the opinion mutely expressed by their com-
panions. Taking the earliest opportunity to

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 115

question Mrs. Wix on this subject, she elicited
the remarkable reply : " Well, my dear, it 's
her ladyship's game ; and we must just hold
on like grim death." Maisie, at her leisure,
could interpret these ominous words. Her
reflections indeed at this moment thickened
apace, and one of them made her sure that
her governess had conversations, private, ear-
nest and not infrequent, with her frivolous
stepfather. She perceived in the light of a
second episode that something beyond her
knowledge had taken place in the house.
The things beyond her knowledge — numer-
ous enough in truth — had not hitherto, she
believed, been the things that were nearest to
her; she had even had in the past a small,
snug conviction that in the domestic laby-
rinth she always kept the clew. This time
too, however, she at last found out; with the
discreet aid, it had to be confessed, of Mrs.
Wix. Sir Claude's own assistance was ab-
ruptly taken from her for his comment on
her ladyship's game was to start on the spot,
quite alone, for Paris ; evidently because he
wished to show a spirit when accused of posi-
tive wickedness. He might be fond of his
stepdaughter, Maisie felt, without wishing her
to be, after all, thrust on him in such a way.

n6 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

His absence therefore, it was clear, was a
protest against the thrusting. It was while
this absence lasted that our young lady
finally discovered what had happened in
the house to be that her mother was no
longer in love.

The limit of a passion for Sir Claude had
certainly been reached, she judged, some
time before the day on which her ladyship
burst suddenly into the schoolroom to in-
troduce Mr. Perriam, who, as she announced
from the doorway to Maisie, would n't be-
lieve his ears that one had a great hoiden
of a daughter. Mr. Perriam was short and
massive — Mrs. Wix remarked afterwards
that he was distinctly fat ; and it would have
been difficult to say of him whether his head
were more bald or his black moustache more
bushy. He seemed also to have moustaches
over his eyes, which, however, by no means
prevented these polished little globes from
rolling round the room as if they had been
billiard-balls impelled by Ida's celebrated
stroke. Mr. Perriam wore on the hand that
pulled his moustache a diamond of dazzling
lustre, in consequence of which and of his
general weight and mystery our young lady
observed on his departure that if he had

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 117

only had a turban he would have been quite
her idea of a heathen Turk.

" He 's quite my idea," Mrs. Wix replied,
" of a heathen Jew."

" Well, I mean," said Maisie, " of a person
who comes from the East"

"That's where he must come from," her
governess opined. " He comes from the
City." In a moment she added as if she
knew all about him : " He 's one of those
people who have lately broken out. He '11
be immensely rich."

"On the death of his papa?" the child
interestedly inquired.

" Dear, no — nothing hereditary. I mean
he has made a lot of money."

"How much, do you think?" Maisie de-
manded.

Mrs. Wix reflected and sketched it. " Oh,
many millions."

" A hundred?" said her questioner.

Mrs. Wix was n't sure of the number, but
there were enough of them to have seemed
to warm up for the time the penury of the
schoolroom, to linger there as an afterglow
of the hot, heavy light Mr. Perriam sensibly
shed. This was also, no doubt, on his part,
an effect of that enjoyment of life with which,

n8 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

among her elders, Maisie had been in contact
from her earliest years — the sign of happy
maturity, the old familiar note of overflowing
cheer. " How d'ye do, ma'am, how d'ye
do, little miss?" — he laughed and nodded
at the gaping figures. " She has brought me
up for a peep — it's true I wouldn't take
you on trust. She 's always talking about
you, but she would never produce you : so
to-day I challenged her on the spot. Well,
you ain't a myth, my dear ; I back right down
on that," the visitor went on to Maisie ; " nor
you, either, miss, though you might be, to be
sure ! "

" I bored him with you, darling — I bore
every one," Ida said ; " and to prove that
you are a sweet thing, as well as a fearfully
old one, I told him he could judge for him-
self. So now he sees that you 're a dreadful
bouncing business and that your poor old
mummy's at least sixty! " — and her lady-
ship smiled at Mr. Perriam with the charm
that her daughter had heard imputed to her
at papa's by the merry gentleman who had
so often wished to get from him what they
called a " rise." Her manner at that instant
gave the child a glimpse more vivid than any
yet enjoyed of the attraction that papa, in re-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 119

markable language, always denied she could
put forth.

Mr. Perriam, however, clearly recognized it
in the grace with which he met her. " I
never said you ain't wonderful. Did I ever
say it, hey? " — and he appealed with pleas-
ant confidence to the testimony of the school-
room, about which itself also he evidently
felt that he ought to have something to say.
" So this is their little place, hey ? Charm-
ing, charming, charming ! " he repeated as he
vaguely looked round. The interrupted stu-
dents clung together as if they had been
personally exposed ; but Ida relieved their em-
barrassment by a hunch of her high shoulders.
This time the smile she addressed to Mr.
Perriam had a beauty of sudden sadness.
" What on earth 's a poor woman to do? "

The visitor's grimace grew more marked
as he continued to look, and the conscious
little schoolroom felt still more like a cage at
a menagerie. " Charming, charming, charm-
ing ! " Mr. Perriam insisted ; but the paren-
thesis closed with a prompt click. " There
you are ! " said her ladyship. " Bye-bye ! "
she sharply added. The next minute they
were on the stairs, and Mrs. Wix and her
companion, at the open door and looking

120 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

mutely at each other, were reached by the
sound of the ample current that carried them
back to their life.

It was singular perhaps, after this, that
Maisie never put a question about Mr. Per-
riam, and it was still more singular that by
the end of a week she knew all she did n't
ask. What she most particularly knew —
and the information came to her, unsought,
straight from Mrs. Wix — was that Sir Claude
would n't at all care for the visits of a million-
naire who was in and out of the upper rooms.
How little he would care was proved by the
fact that under the sense of them Mrs. Wix's
discretion broke down altogether; she was
capable of a transfer of allegiance — capable,
at the altar of propriety, of a desperate sacri-
fice of her ladyship. As against Mrs. Beale,
she more than once intimated, she had been
willing to do the best for her, but as against
Sir Claude she could do nothing for her at all.
It was extraordinary the number of things
that, still without a question, Maisie knew by
the time her stepfather came back from Paris
— came bringing her a splendid apparatus
for painting in water-colors and bringing
Mrs. Wix, by a lapse of memory that would
have been droll if it had not been a trifle

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 121

disconcerting, a second and even more ele-
gant umbrella. He had forgotten all about
the first, with which, buried in as many
wrappers as a mummy of the Pharaohs, she
would n't for the world have done anything
so profane as use it. Maisie knew, above all,
that though she was now, by what she called
an informal understanding, on Sir Claude's
" side," she had not yet uttered a word to
him about Mr. Perriam. That gentleman be-
came therefore a kind of flourishing public
secret, out of the depths of which governess
and pupil looked at each other portentously
from the time their friend was restored to
them. He was restored in great abundance,
and it was marked that though he appeared
to have felt the need to take a stand against
the risk of being too roughly saddled with
the offspring of others, he at this period ex-
posed himself more than ever before to the
presumption of having created expectations.
If it had become now, for that matter, a
question of sides, there was at least a certain
amount of evidence as to where they all were.
Maisie, of course, in such a delicate position,
was on nobody's ; but Sir Claude had all the
air of being on hers. If therefore Mrs.
Wix was on Sir Claude's, her ladyship on Mr.

122 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Perriam's, and Mr. Perriam presumably on
her ladyship's, this left only Mrs. Beale and
Mr. Farange to account for. Mrs. Beale
clearly was, like Sir Claude, on Maisie's, and
papa, it was to be supposed, on Mrs. Beale's.
Here indeed was a slight ambiguity, as papa's
being on Mrs. Beale's did n't somehow seem
to place him quite on his daughter's. It
sounded, as this young lady thought it over,
very much like puss-in-the-corner, and she
could only wonder if the distribution of par-
ties would lead to a rushing to and fro and a
changing of places. She was in the presence,
she felt, of restless change. Wasn't it rest-
less enough that her mother and her step-
father should already be on different sides?
That was the great thing that had domesti-
cally happened. Mrs. Wix, besides, had
turned another face; she had never been
exactly gay, but her gravity was now an atti-
tude as conspicuous as a poster. She seemed
to sit there in her new dress and brood over
her lost delicacy, which had become almost
as doleful a memory as that of poor Clara
Matilda. " It is hard for him," she often
said to her companion ; and it was surprising
how competent on this point Maisie was con-
scious of being to agree with her. Hard as

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 123

it was, however, Sir Claude had never shown
to greater advantage than in the gallant, gene-
rous, sociable way he carried it off — away
that drew from Mrs. Wix a hundred expres-
sions of relief at his not having suffered it to
embitter him. It threw him more and more,
at last, into the schoolroom, where he had
plainly begun to recognize that if he was
to have the credit of perverting the innocent
child he might also at least have the
amusement. He never came into the place
without telling its occupants that they were
the nicest people in the house — a remark
which always led them to say to each other,
" Mr. Perriam ! " as loud as ever compressed
lips and enlarged eyes could make them
articulate. He caused Maisie to remember
what she had said to Mrs. Beale about his
having the nature of a good nurse and —
rather more than she intended before Mrs.
Wix — to bring the whole thing out by once
remarking to him that none of her good nurses
had smoked quite so much in the nursery.
This had no more effect than it was meant to
on his cigarettes : he was always smoking,
but always declaring that it was death to him
not to lead a domestic life.

He led one, after all, in the schoolroom,

i24 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

and there were hours of late evening, when
she had gone to bed, that Maisie knew he sat
there talking with Mrs. Wix of how to meet
his difficulties. His consideration for this
unfortunate woman even in the midst of
them continued to show him as the perfect
gentleman and lifted the object of his cour-
tesy into an upper air of beatitude in which
her very pride had the hush of anxiety.
" He leans on me — he leans on me ! " she
only announced from time to time ; and she
was more surprised than amused when, later
on, she accidentally found she had given her
pupil the impression of a support literally
supplied by her person. This glimpse of a
misconception led her to be explicit — to
put before the child, with an air of mourning
indeed for such a stoop to the common, that
what they talked about in the small hours, as
they said, was the question of his taking right
hold of life. The life she wanted him to take
right hold of was the public ; " she," I hasten
to add, was, in this connection, not the mistress
of his fate, but only Mrs. Wix herself. She
had phrases about him that were full of ten-
derness, yet full of morality. " He 's a won-
derful nature, but he can't live like the lilies.
He 's all right) you know, but he must have a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 125

high interest." She had more than once re-
marked that his affairs were sadly involved,
but that they must get him — Maisie and she
together apparently — into Parliament. The
child took it from her with a flutter of impor-
tance that Parliament was his natural sphere,
and she was the less prepared to recognize a
hindrance as she had never heard of any
affairs whatever that were not involved. She
had, in the old days, once been told by Mrs.
Beale that her very own were, and, with the
refreshment of knowing that she had affairs,
the information had n't in the least over-
whelmed her. It was true, and perhaps a little
alarming, that she had never heard of any
such matters since then. Full of charm, at
any rate, was the prospect of some day get-
ting Sir Claude in ; especially after Mrs.
Wix, as the fruit of more midnight colloquies,
once went so far as to observe that she really
believed it was all that was wanted to save
him. Mrs. Wix, with these words, struck her
pupil as cropping up, after the manner of
mamma when mamma talked, quite in a new
place ; and the child stared as at the jump of
a kangaroo.

" Save him from what? "

Mrs. Wix hesitated ; then she covered a

126 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

still greater distance. " Why, my dear, just
from awful misery."

XII

SHE had at the moment not explained her
ominous speech, but the light of remarkable
events soon enabled her companion to read
it. It may indeed be said that these days
brought on a high quickening of Maisie's
direct perceptions, of her gratified sense of
arriving by herself at conclusions. This was
helped by an emotion intrinsically far from
sweet — the increase of the alarm that had
most haunted her meditations. She had no
need to be told, as on the morrow of the
revelation of Sir Claude's danger she was told
by Mrs. Wix, that her mother wanted more
and more to know why the devil her father
did n't send for her. She had too long ex-
pected that mamma's curiosity on this point
would break out with violence. Maisie could
meet such pressure so far as meeting it was
to be in a position to reply, in words directly
inspired, that papa would be hanged before
he 'd again be saddled with her. She there-
fore recognized the hour that in troubled

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 127

glimpses she had long foreseen, the hour
when — the phrase for it came back to her
from Mrs. Beale — with two fathers, two
mothers and two homes, six protections in
all, she should n't know " wherever " to go.
Such apprehension as she felt on this score
was not diminished by the fact that Mrs. Wix
herself was suddenly white with terror — a
circumstance leading Maisie to the further
knowledge that this lady was still more
scared on her own behalf than on that of her
pupil. A governess who had only one frock
was not likely to have either two fathers or
two mothers ; accordingly, if even with these
resources Maisie was to be in the streets,
where in the name of all that was dreadful
was poor Mrs. Wix to be? She had had,
it appeared, a tremendous brush with Ida,
which had begun and ended with the request
that she would be pleased, on the spot, to
" bundle." It had come suddenly, but com-
pletely, this signal of which she had gone in
fear. The companions confessed to each
other their long foreboding, but Mrs. Wix
was better off than Maisie in having a plan
of defence. She declined indeed to commu-
nicate it till it was quite mature ; but mean-
while, she hastened to declare, her feet were

128 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

firm in the schoolroom. They could only be
loosened by force ; she would " leave " for the
police, perhaps, but she would n't " leave "
for mere outrage. That would be to play
her ladyship's game, and it would take
another turn of the screw to make her desert
her darling. Her ladyship had come down
with extraordinary ferocity : it had been one
of many symptoms of a situation strained —
" between them all," as Mrs. Wix said, " but
especially between the two " — to the point
of God only knew what !

Her description of the crisis made the child
reflect. "Between which two? — papa and
mamma?"

" Dear, no. I mean between your mother
and him"

Maisie, in this, recognized an opportunity
to be really deep. " Him? — Mr. Perriam? "

She fairly brought a blush to the scared
face. " Well, my dear, I must say that what
you don't know ain't worth mentioning.
That it won't go on forever with Mr. Perriam
— since I must meet you — who can sup-
pose? But I meant dear Sir Claude."

Maisie stood corrected rather than abashed.
"I see. But it's about Mr. Perriam he's
angry?"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 129

Mrs. Wix hesitated. " He says he 's
not."

" Not angry? He has told you so? "

Mrs. Wix looked at her hard. " Not about
him."

" Then about some one else?"

Mrs. Wix looked at her harder. "About
some one else."

" Lord Eric? " the child promptly brought
forth.

At this, of a sudden, her governess was
more agitated. " Oh, why, little unfortunate,
should we discuss their dreadful names?" —
and she threw herself for the millionth time
on Maisie's neck. It took her pupil but a
moment to feel that she quivered with insecu-
rity, and, the contact of her terror aiding, the
pair, in another instant, were sobbing in each
other's arms. Then it was that, completely
relaxed, demoralized as she had never been,
Mrs. Wix suffered her wound to bleed and
her resentment to gush. Her great bitter-
ness was that Ida had called her false, de-
nounced her hypocrisy and duplicity, reviled
her spying and tattling, her lying and grovel-
ling to Sir Claude. " Me, me ! " the poor
woman wailed, " who Ve seen what I Ve seen
and gone through everything only to cover
9

130 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

her up and ease her off and smooth her
down ! If I Ve been an 'ipocrite it 's the
other way round : I Ve pretended to him and
to her, to myself and to you and to every
one, not to see ! It serves me right to have
held my tongue before such horrors ! " What
horrors they were her companion forbore
too closely to inquire, showing even signs
not a few of an ability to take them for
granted. That put the couple more than
ever, in this troubled sea, in the same boat,
so that with the consciousness of ideas on
the part of her fellow-mariner Maisie could
sit close and wait. Sir Claude on the morrow
came in to tea, and then the ideas were pro-
duced. It was extraordinary how the child's
presence drew out their full richness. The
principal one was startling, but Maisie appre-
ciated the courage with which her governess
handled it. It simply consisted of the pro-
posal that whenever and wherever they
should take refuge Sir Claude should consent
to share their asylum. On his protesting
with all the warmth in nature against this
note of secession she asked what else in the
world was left to them if her ladyship should
stop supplies.

" Supplies be hanged, my dear woman ! "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 131

said their delightful friend. " Leave supplies
to me — I '11 take care of supplies."

Mrs. Wix hesitated. "Well, it's exactly
because I knew you 'd be so glad to do so
that I put the question before you. There 's
a way to look after us better than any other.
That way is just to come with us."

It hung before Maisie, Mrs. Wix's way,
like a glittering picture, and she clasped her
hands in ecstasy. "Come with us — come
with us ! " she echoed.

Sir Claude looked from his stepdaughter
back to her governess. " Do you mean
leave this house and take up my abode with
you?"

"It will be the right thing — if you feel
as you Ve told me you feel." Mrs. Wix, sus-
tained and uplifted, was now as clear as a
bell.

Sir Claude had the air of trying to recall
what he had told her; then the light broke
that was always breaking to make his face
more pleasant. " It 's your suggestion that
I shall take a house for you?"

" For the wretched homeless child. Any
roof — over our heads — will do for us; but
of course for you it will have to be something
really nice."

132 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Sir Claude's eyes reverted to Maisie rather
hard, as she thought ; and there was a shade
in his very smile that seemed to show her —
though she also felt it didn't show Mrs. Wix
— that the accommodation prescribed must
loom to him pretty large. The next mo-
ment, however, he laughed gayly enough.
" My dear lady, you exaggerate tremen-
dously my poor little needs." Mrs. Wix had
once mentioned to her young friend that
when Sir Claude called her his dear lady
he could do anything with her; and Maisie
felt a certain anxiety to see what he would
do now. Well, he only addressed her a
remark of which the child herself was aware
of feeling the force. " Your plan appeals
to me immensely; but of course — don't
you see ? — I shall have to consider the posi-
tion I put myself in by leaving my wife."

" You '11 also have to remember," Mrs.
Wix replied, " that if you don't look out
your wife won't give you time to consider.
Her ladyship will leave you''

" Ah, my good friend, I do look out,"
the young man returned while Maisie helped
herself afresh to bread and butter. " Of
course if that happens I shall have somehow
to turn round ; but I hope with all my heart

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 133

it won't. I beg your pardon," he continued
to his stepdaughter, "for appearing to dis-
cuss that sort of possibility under your sharp
little nose. But the fact is that I forget half
the time that Ida is your sainted mother."

" So do I ! " said Maisie, to put him the
more in the right.

Her protectress, at this, was upon her
again. " The little desolate, precious pet ! "
For the rest of the conversation she was
enclosed in Mrs. Wix's arms, and as they
sat there interlocked Sir Claude, before them
with his teacup, looked down at them in
deepening thought. Shrink together as they
might they could n't help, Maisie felt, being
a very massive image, a large, loose, ponder-
ous presentment of what Mrs. Wix required
of him. She knew moreover that this lady
did n't make it better by adding in a moment :
" Of course we should n't dream of a whole
house. Any sort of little lodging, however
humble, would be only too blessed."

" But it would have to be something that
would hold us all," said Sir Claude.

" Oh, yes," Mrs. Wix concurred ; " the
whole point is our being together. While
you 're waiting, before you act, for her lady-
ship to take some step, our position here

134 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

will come to an impossible pass. You don't
know what I went through with her for you
yesterday — and for our poor darling; but
it's not a thing I can promise you often
to face again. She has dismissed me in
horrible language — she has instructed the
servants not to wait on me."

" Oh, the poor servants are all right ! " Sir
Claude eagerly cried.

" They 're certainly better than their mis-
tress ! It 's too dreadful that I should sit
here and say of your wife, Sir Claude, and
of Maisie's own mother, that she's lower
than a domestic; but my being betrayed
into such remarks is just a reason the more
for our getting away. I shall stay till I 'm
taken by the shoulders, but that may happen
any day. What also may perfectly happen,
you must permit me to repeat, is that she '11
go off to get rid of us."

" Oh, if she '11 only do that ! " Sir Claude
laughed. "That would be the very making
of us ! "

"Don't say it—don't say it! " Mrs. Wix
pleaded. " Don't speak of anything so fatal !
You know what I mean. We must all cling
to the right. You must n't be bad."

Sir Claude set down his teacup ; he had

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 135

become more grave and he pensively wiped
his moustache. " Won't all the world say
I 'm awful if I leave the house before —
before she has bolted? They'll say it was
my doing that made her bolt."

Maisie could grasp the force of this rea-
soning, but it offered no check to Mrs. Wix.
" Why need you mind that — if you Ve done
it for so high a motive ? Think of the beauty
of it," the good lady pressed.

" Of bolting with you?" Sir Claude ejacu-
lated.

She faintly smiled — she even faintly col-
ored. " So far from doing you harm it will
do you the highest good. Sir Claude, if
you '11 listen to me, it will save you."

" Save me from what? "

Maisie, at this question, waited with re-
newed suspense for an answer that would
bring the thing to a finer point than their
companion had brought it to before. But
there was, on the contrary, only more mys-
tification in Mrs. Wix's reply. "Ah, from
you know what ! "

" Do you mean from some other woman?"

" Yes — from a real bad one."

Sir Claude, at least, the child could see,
was not mystified; so little, indeed, that a

136 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

smile of intelligence broke afresh in his
eyes. He turned them in vague discomfort
to Maisie, and then something in the way
she met them caused him to chuck her
playfully under the chin. It was not till
after this that he good-naturedly met Mrs.
Wix. "You think me worse than I am."

"If that were true," she returned, "I
would n't appeal to you. I do, Sir Claude,
in the name of all that 's good in you —
and, oh, so earnestly! We can help each
other. What you '11 do for our young friend
here I need n't say. That is n't even what I
want to speak of now. What I want to speak
of is what you'll get — don't you see? —
from such an opportunity to take hold.
Take hold of us — take hold of her. Make
her your duty — make her your life : she '11
repay you a thousand-fold ! "

It was to Mrs. Wix, during this appeal,
that Maisie's contemplation transferred it-
self— partly because, though her heart was
in her throat for trepidation, she felt a cer-
tain delicacy about appearing herself to press
the question ; partly from the coercion of
seeing Mrs. Wix come out as Mrs. Wix
had never come before — not even on the
day of her call at Mrs. Beale's with the news

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 137

of her mamma's marriage. On that day
Mrs. Beale had surpassed her in dignity ;
but nobody could have surpassed her now.
There was, in fact at this moment a fasci-
nation for her pupil in the hint she seemed
to give that she had still more of that sur-
prise behind. So the sharpened sense of
spectatorship was the child's main support —
the long habit, from the first, of seeing her-
self in discussion, and finding in the fury
of it — she had had a glimpse of the game
of football — a sort of compensation for the
doom of a peculiar passivity. It gave her
often an odd air of being present at her his-
tory in as separate a mode as if she could
only get at experience by flattening her
nose against a pane of glass. Such she felt
to be the application of her nose while she
waited for the effect of Mrs. Wix's eloquence.
Sir Claude, however, did n't keep her long in
a position so ungraceful: he sat down and
opened his arms to her as he had done the
day he came for her at her father's, and while
he held her there, looking at her kindly, but
as if their companion had brought the blood
a good deal to his face, he said : " Dear Mrs.
Wix is magnificent, but she's rather too
grand about it. I mean the situation isn't

138 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

after all quite so desperate or quite so sim-
ple. But I give you my word before her,
and I give it to her before you, that I '11
never, never forsake you. Do you hear that,
old fellow? and do you take it in? I '11
stick to you through everything." Maisie
did take it in — took it with a lang tremor
of all her little being; and then, as, to
emphasize it, he drew her closer, she buried
her head on his shoulder and cried without
sound and without pain. While she was
so engaged she became aware that his own
breast was agitated, and gathered from it
with rapture that his tears were as silently
flowing. Presently she heard a loud sob
from Mrs. Wix — Mrs. Wix was the only
one who made a noise.

She was to have made, for some time,
none other but this, though within a few
days, in conversation with her pupil, she
described her relations with Ida as posi-
tively excruciating. There was as yet never-
theless no attempt to eject her by force, and
she recognized that Sir Claude, taking such
a stand as never before, had intervened with
passion and success. As Maisie remembered
— and remembered wholly without disdain —
that he had told her he was afraid of her

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 139

ladyship, the little girl took this act of reso-
lution as a proof of what, in the spirit of the
engagement sealed by all their tears, he was
really prepared to do. Mrs. Wix spoke to
her of the pecuniary sacrifice by which she
herself purchased the scant security she en-
joyed and which, if it was a defence against
the hand of violence, was far from making
her safe from private aggression. Didn't
her ladyship find every hour of the day
some insidious means to humiliate and tram-
ple upon her? There was a quarter's salary
owing her — a great name, even Maisie could
suspect, for a small matter : she should never
see it as long as she lived, but keeping quiet
about it put her ladyship, thank Heaven, a
little in one's power. Now that he was do-
ing so much else she could never have the
grossness to apply for it to Sir Claude. He
had sent home for schoolroom consumption
a huge frosted cake, a wonderful delectable
mountain with geological strata of jam, which
might with economy see them through many
days of their siege ; but it was none the less
known to Mrs. Wix that his affairs were
more and more involved, and her fellow-par-
taker looked back tenderly, in the light of
these involutions, at the expression of face

140 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

with which he had greeted the proposal
that he should set up another establishment.
Maisie felt that if their maintenance should
hang but by a thread they must still demean
themselves with the highest delicacy. What
he was doing was simply acting without
delay, so far as his embarrassments per-
mitted, on the inspiration of his elder friend.
There was at this season a wonderful month
of May — as soft as a drop of the wind
in a gale that had kept one awake — when
he took out his stepdaughter with a fresh
alacrity and they rambled the great town in
search, as Mrs. Wix called it, of combined
amusement and instruction.

They rode on the top of 'busses ; they vis-
ited outlying parks; they went to cricket-
matches where Maisie fell asleep ; they tried
a hundred places for the best one to have
tea: this was his direct way of rising to
Mrs. Wix's admirable lesson — of making
his little accepted charge his duty and his
life. They dropped, under incontrollable im-
pulses, into shops that they agreed were too
big, to look at things that they agreed were
too small, and it was during these hours that
Mrs. Wix, alone at home, but a subject of
regretful reference as they pulled off their

MAISIE KNEW 141

gloves for refreshment, subsequently de-
scribed herself as most exposed to the blows
that her ladyship had achieved such inge-
nuity in dealing. She again and again re-
peated that she would not so much have
minded having her " attainments " held up
to scorn and her knowledge of every subject
denied if she were not habitually denounced
to her face as the basest of her sex. There
was by this time no pretence on the part
of any one of denying it to be fortunate
that her ladyship habitually left London
every Saturday and was more and more dis-
posed to a return late in the week. It was
almost equally public that she regarded as
a preposterous "pose" and indeed as a
direct insult to herself her husband's atti-
tude of staying behind to look after a child
for whom the most elaborate provision had
been made. If there was a type Ida de-
spised, Sir Claude communicated to Maisie,
it was the man who pottered about town of
a Sunday ; and he also mentioned how often
she had declared to him that if he had a grain
of spirit he would be ashamed to accept a
menial position about Mr. Farange's daughter.
It was her ladyship's contention that he was
in craven fear of his predecessor — otherwise

142 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

he would recognize it as an obligation of
plain decency to protect his wife against the
outrage of that person's barefaced attempt
to swindle her. The swindle was that Mr.
Farange put upon her the whole intolerable
burden ; " and even when I pay for you my-
self," Sir Claude averred to his young friend,
" she accuses me the more of truckling and
grovelling." It was Mrs. Wix's conviction,
they both knew, arrived at on independent
grounds, that Ida's weekly excursions were
feelers for a more considerable absence. If
she came back later each week the week
would be sure to arrive when she would n't
come back at all. This appearance had of
course much to do with Mrs. Wix's actual
valor. Could they but hold out long
enough the snug little home with Sir Claude
would find itself informally constituted.

XIII

THIS might moreover have been taken to be
the sense of a remark made by her step-
father as — one rainy day when the streets
were all splash and two umbrellas unsociable
and the wanderers had sought shelter in the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 143

National Gallery — Maisie sat beside him
staring rather sightlessly at a roomful of
pictures which he had mystified her much
by speaking of with a bored sigh as a
" silly superstition." They represented, with
patches of gold and cataracts of purple, with
stiff saints and angular angels, with ugly
Madonnas and uglier babies, strange prayers
and prostrations; so that she at first took
his words for a protest against devotional
idolatry — all the more that he had of late
come often with her and with Mrs. Wix to
morning church, a place of worship of Mrs.
Wix's own choosing, where there was noth-
ing of that sort, no halos on heads, but only,
during long sermons, beguiling backs of bon-
nets, and where, as her governess always
afterwards observed, he gave the most ear-
nest attention. It presently appeared, how-
ever, that his reference was merely to the
affectation of admiring such ridiculous works
— an admonition that she received from him
as submissively as she received everything.
What turn it gave to their talk need not here
be recorded: the transition to the colorless
schoolroom and lonely Mrs. Wix was doubt-
less an effect of relaxed interest in what was
before them. Maisie expressed in her own

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

way the truth that she never went home
nowadays without expecting to find the
temple of her studies empty and the poor
priestess cast out. This conveyed a full
appreciation of her peril, and it was in re-
joinder that Sir Claude uttered, acknowledg-
ing the source of that peril, the reassurance
at which I have glanced. " Don't be afraid,
my dear : I Ve squared her." It required
indeed a supplement when he saw that it
left the child momentarily blank. " I mean
that your mother lets me do what I want so
long as I let her do what she wants."

"So you are doing what you want?"
Maisie asked.

"Rather, Miss Farange."

Miss Farange turned it over. " And she 's
doing the same? "

"Up to the hilt."

Again she considered. " Then, please,
what may it be? "

" I would n't tell you for the whole world."

She gazed at a gaunt Madonna ; after which
she broke out into a slow smile. " Well, I
don't care — so long as you do let her ! "

" Oh, you monster ! " laughed Sir Claude,
getting up.

Another day, in another place, a place in

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 145

Baker Street, where at a hungry hour she
had sat down with him to tea and buns, he
brought out a question disconnected from
previous talk. " I say, you know — what do
you suppose your father would do ? "

Maisie had not long to cast about nor to
question his pleasant eyes. " If you were
really to go with us? He would make a
great complaint."

He seemed amused at the term she
employed. " Oh, I should n't mind a
' complaint' "

" He would talk to every one about it,"
said Maisie.

" Well, I should n't mind that either."

" Of course not," the child hastened to
respond. " You Ve told me you 're not afraid
of him."

" The question is, are you f " said Sir
Claude.

Maisie candidly considered; then she
spoke resolutely. " No — not of papa."

" But of somebody else? "

" Certainly, of lots of people."

"Of your mother, first and foremost, of
course."

"Dear, yes; more of mamma than of —
than of—"

10

146 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" Than of what?" Sir Claude asked as she
hesitated for a comparison.

She thought over all the objects of dread.
" Than of a wild elephant ! " she at last sug-
gested. " And you are too/' she reminded
him as he laughed.

" Oh, yes ; I am too."

Again she meditated. " Then why did
you marry her? "

" Just because I was afraid."

" Even when she loved you? "

" That made her the more alarming ! "

For Maisie herself, though her companion
seemed to find it droll, this opened up depths
of gravity. " More alarming than she is
now?"

" Well, in a different way. Alarm, unfor-
tunately, is a very big thing, and there's a
great variety of kinds."

She took this in with complete intelligence.
" Then I think I Ve got them all."

"You?" her friend cried. "Nonsense!
You 're thoroughly game."

" I Jm awfully afraid of Mrs. Beale," Maisie
insisted.

He raised his smooth brows. " That
charming woman?"

" Well," she answered, " you can't under-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 147

stand it, because you're not in the same
state."

She had been going on with a luminous
" But," when, across the table, he laid his
hand on her arm. " I can understand it," he
confessed. " I am in the same state."

" Oh, but she likes you so ! " Maisie eagerly
argued.

Sir Claude literally colored. "That has
something to do with it."

Maisie wondered again. " Being liked
with being afraid?"

" Yes ; when it amounts to adoration."

" Then why are n't you afraid of me?"

"Because with you it amounts to that? "
He had kept his hand on her arm. " Well,
what prevents is simply that you 're the
gentlest spirit on earth. Besides — " he
pursued; but he came to a pause.

"Besides—?"

" I should be in fear if you were older —
there ! See ? — you already make me talk
nonsense," the young man added. "The
question 's about your father. Is he likewise
afraid of Mrs. Beale?"

" I think not. And yet he loves her,"
Maisie mused.

" Oh, no — he does n't ; not a bit ! " After

148 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

which, as his companion stared, Sir Claude
apparently felt that he must make his
announcement fit with her recollections.
" There 's nothing of that sort now."

But Maisie only stared the more.
"They've changed?"

" Like your mother and me."

She wondered how he knew. " Then
you Ve seen Mrs. Beale again? "

He hesitated. " Oh, no. She has written
to me," he presently pursued. "She's not
afraid of your father either. No one at all is
— really." Then he went on, while Maisie's
little mind, with its filial spring too relaxed,
from of old, for a pang at this want of
parental majesty, speculated on the vague
relation between Mrs. Beale's courage and the
question, for Mrs. Wix and herself, of a neat
lodging with their friend. " She would n't
care a bit if Mr. Farange should make a
row."

" Do you mean about you and me and
Mrs. Wix? Why should she care? It
would n't hurt her."

Sir Claude, with his legs out and his hand
diving into his trousers' pocket, threw back
his head with a laugh just perceptibly tem-
pered, as she thought, by a sigh. " My dear

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 149

stepchild, you 're delightful ! Look here,
we must pay. You Ve had five buns? "

" How can you? " Maisie demanded, crim-
son under the eye of the young woman who
had stepped to their board. " I Ve had
three."

Shortly after this Mrs. Wix looked so ill
that it was to be feared her ladyship had
treated her to some unexampled passage.
Maisie asked if anything worse than usual
had occurred, whereupon the poor woman
brought out with infinite gloom : " He has
been seeing Mrs. Beale ! "

"Sir Claude?" The child remembered
what he had said. " Oh, no — not seeing
her!"

" I beg your pardon. I absolutely know
it." Mrs. Wix was as positive as she was
dismal.

Maisie nevertheless ventured to challenge
her. "And how, please, do you know it?"

She faltered a moment. " From herself.
I Ve been to see her." Then, on Maisie's
visible surprise, " I went yesterday while
you were out with him. He has seen her
repeatedly."

It was not wholly clear to Maisie why Mrs.
Wix should be prostrate at this discovery;

ISO WHAT MAISIE KNEW

but her general consciousness of the way
things would be both perpetrated and re-
sented always eased off for her the strain
of any particular mystery. " There may be
some mistake. He says he hasn't."

Mrs. Wix turned paler, as if this were a still
deeper ground for alarm. " He says so? —
he denies that he has seen her? "

" He told me so three days ago. Perhaps
she 's mistaken," Maisie suggested.

"Do you mean perhaps she lies? She lies
whenever it suits her, I 'm very sure. But I
know when people lie. That 's what I Ve
loved in you : you never do. Mrs. Beale
did n't yesterday at any rate. He has seen
her."

Maisie was silent a little. " He says not,"
she then repeated. " Perhaps — perhaps — "
Once more she paused.

" Do you mean perhaps he lies?"

" Gracious goodness, no ! " Maisie shouted.

Mrs. Wix's bitterness, however, again over-
flowed. "He does, he does-! " she cried,
" and it 's that that 's just the worst of it !
They '11 take you, they '11 take you, and what
in the world will then become of me? " She
threw herself afresh upon her pupil and wept
over her with the inevitable effect of causing

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 151

the child's own tears to flow. But Maisie
could not have told you if she had been cry-
ing at the image of their separation or at that
of Sir Claude's untruth. As regards this
deviation it was agreed between them that
they were not in a position to bring it home
to him. Mrs. Wix was in dread of doing
anything to make him, as she said, " worse ; "
and Maisie was sufficiently initiated to be
able to reflect that in speaking to her as he
had done he had only wished to be tender of
Mrs. Beale. It fell in with all her inclinations
to think of him as tender, and she forbore to
let him know that the two ladies had, as she
would never do, betrayed him.

She had not long to keep her secret, for
the next day, when she went out with him,
he suddenly said in reference to some errand
he had first proposed: "No, no; we won't
do that — we '11 do something else ! " On
this, a few steps from the door, he stopped a
hansom and helped her in; then, following
her, he gave the driver, over the top, an
address that she lost. When he was seated
beside her she asked him where they were
going ; to which he replied : " My dear child,
you'll see." She saw, while she watched
and wondered, that they took the direction of

152 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

the Regent's Park ; but she did n't know why
he should make a mystery of that, and it was
not till they passed under a pretty arch and
drew up at a white house in a terrace, from
which the view, she thought, must be lovely,
that, mystified, she clutched him and broke
out: " I shall see papa?"

He looked down at her with a kind smile.
" No ; probably not. I have n't brought you
for that."

"Then, whose house is it?"

" It 's your father's. They 've moved here."

She looked about; she had known Mr.
Farange in four or five houses, and there was
nothing astonishing in this except that it was
the nicest place yet. " But I shall see Mrs.
Beale?"

" It 's to see her that I brought you."

She stared, very white and with her hand
on his arm; though they had stopped she
kept him sitting in the cab. " To leave me,
do you mean?"

He hesitated. " It 's not for me to say if
you can stay. We must look into it."

" But if I do I shall see papa? "

" Oh, some time or other, no doubt." Then
Sir Claude went on : " Have you really so
very great a dread of that ? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 153

Maisie glanced away over the apron of the
cab — gazed a minute at the green expanse
of the Regent's Park; and at the moment,
coloring to the roots of her hair, she felt the
small rush of an emotion more mature than
any she had yet known. It consisted of a
sudden sense of shame at placing in an in-
ferior light, to so perfect a gentleman and so
charming a person as Sir Claude, so very
near a relative as Mr. Farange. She remem-
bered, however, her friend's telling her that
no one was seriously afraid of her father, and
she turned round with a brave toss of her
head. " Oh, I dare say I can manage
him ! "

Sir Claude smiled, but she noticed that the
violence with which she had just changed
color had brought into his own face a slight
compunctious and embarrassed flush. It was
as if he had caught his first glimpse of her
sense of responsibility. Neither of them
made a movement to get out, and after an
instant he said to her : " Look here, if you
say so, we won't, after all, go in."

" Ah, but I want to see Mrs. Beale ! " the
child murmured.

" But what if she does decide to take you?
Then, you know, you '11 have to remain."

154 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Maisie turned it over. "Straight on —
and give you up?"

" Well — I don't quite know about giving
me up."

" I mean as I gave up Mrs. Beale when I
last went to mamma's. I could n't do with-
out you here for anything like so long a time
as that." It struck her as a hundred years
since she had seen Mrs. Beale, who was on
the other side of the door they were so near
and whom she yet had not taken the jump to
clasp in her arms.

" Oh, I dare say you '11 see more of me
than you Ve seen of Mrs. Beale. It is n't in
me to be so beautifully discreet," Sir Claude
said. " But all the same," he continued, " I
leave the thing, now that we 're here, abso-
lutely with you. You must settle it. We '11
only go in if you say so. If you don't say
so, we '11 turn right round and drive away."

"So that in that case Mrs. Beale won't
take me?"

"Well — not by any act of ours."

" And I shall be able to go on with
mamma? " Maisie asked.

" Oh, I don't say that ! "

She considered. " But I thought you said
you had squared her."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 155

Sir Claude made an odd sound which
turned into a laugh. "Not, my dear child,
to the point she now requires ! "

"Then if she turns me out and I don't
come here — ? "

Sir Claude promptly took her up. " What
do I offer you? you naturally inquire. My
poor chick, that 's just what I ask myself. I
don't see it, I confess, quite as straight as
Mrs. Wix."

His companion gazed a moment at what
Mrs. Wix saw. " You mean we can't make a
little family?"

" It's very base of me, no doubt — but I
can't wholly chuck your mother."

Maisie, at this, emitted a low but length-
ened sigh, a meagre note of reluctant assent,
which would certainly have been amusing to
an auditor. " Then there is n't anything
else?"

" I vow I don't quite see what there is."

Maisie waited a moment. Her silence
seemed to signify that she too had no al-
ternative to suggest. But she made another
appeal. " If I come here you '11 come and
see me?"

" I won't lose sight of you."

"But how often will you come? " As he

156 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

hung fire she pressed him. " Often and
often?"

Still he faltered. " My dear old woman — ! "
he began; then he paused again, going on
the next moment with a change of tone.
"You're too funny! Yes, then," he said,
"often and often."

"All right" — and Maisie jumped out of
the cab. Mrs. Beale was at home, but not
in the drawing-room, and when the butler
had gone for her the child suddenly broke
out : " But when I 'm here what will Mrs.
Wix do?"

"Ah, you should have thought of that
sooner ! " said her companion with the first
faint hint of asperity she had ever heard him
produce.

XIV

MRS. BEALE fairly swooped upon her, and
the effect of the whole hour was to put be-
fore her how much, how quite formidably
indeed after all, she was loved. This was
the more the case as her stepmother, so
changed — in the very manner of her mother
— that she really struck her as a new ac-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 157

quaintance, somehow recalled more famil-
iarity than Maisie could feel. A rich, strong,
expressive affection, in short, pounced upon
her in the shape of a handsomer, nobler,
older Mrs. Beale. It was like making a fine
friend, and they had n't been a minute to-
gether before she felt elated at the way she
had met the choice imposed upon her in the
cab. There was a whole future in the com-
bination of Mrs. Beale's beauty and Mrs.
Beale's hug. She seemed to Maisie charm-
ing to behold, and also to have no connection
at all with anybody who had once had meals
in the nursery and mended underclothing.
The child knew one of her father's wives
was a woman of fashion, but she had always
dimly made a distinction, not applying that
epithet without reserve to the other. Mrs.
Beale, since their separation, had acquired
a conspicuous right to it, and Maisie's first
flush of response to her present delight col-
ored all her splendor with meanings that,
this time, were sweet. She had told Sir
Claude that she was afraid of the lady in
the Regent's Park; but she was not too
much afraid to rejoice aloud on the very
spot. "Why, aren't you beautiful? Isn't
she beautiful, Sir Claude — isn't she?"

158 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" The handsomest woman in London,
simply," Sir Claude gallantly replied. " Just
as you 're the best little girl ! "

Well, the handsomest woman in London
gave herself up with tender, lustrous looks
and every demonstration of fondness to a
happiness at last recovered. There was al-
most as vivid a bloom in her maturity as in
mamma's, and it took her but a short time
to give her little friend an impression of
positive power — an impression that opened
up there like a new source of confidence.
This was a perception on Maisie's part that
neither mamma, nor Sir Claude, nor Mrs.
Wix, with their immense and so varied re-
spective attractions, had exactly kindled and
that made an immediate difference when the
talk, as it promptly did, began to turn to
her father. Oh yes, Mr. Farange was a
complication, but she saw now that he
would not be one for his daughter. For
Mrs. Beale certainly he was an immense
one; she speedily made known as much:
but Mrs. Beale from this moment presented
herself to Maisie as a person to whom a
great gift had come. The great gift was
just for handling complications. Maisie ob-
served how little she made of them when,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 159

after she had dropped, to Sir Claude, some
reference to a previous meeting he ex-
claimed with an air of consternation and yet
with something of a laugh that he had de-
nied to their companion their having, since
the day he came for her, seen each other till
that moment.

Mrs. Beale diffused surprise. "Why did
you do anything so silly?"

" To protect your reputation."

"From Maisie?" Mrs. Beale was much
amused. " My reputation with Maisie is too
good to suffer."

" But you believed me, you rascal, did n't
you?" Sir Claude asked of the child.

She looked at him — she smiled. " Her
reputation did suffer. I discovered you had
been here."

He was not too chagrined to laugh.
" The way, my dear, you talk of that sort of
thing ! "

" How should she talk," Mrs. Beale in-
quired, " after all this ruinous time with
her mother?"

" It was not mamma who told me," Maisie
explained. " It was only Mrs. Wix." She
was hesitating whether to bring out before
Sir Claude the source of Mrs. Wix's infor-

160 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

mation when Mrs. Beale, addressing the
young man, showed her the vanity of her
scruples.

" Do you know that preposterous person
came to see me a day or two ago ? — when
I told her that I had seen you repeatedly."

Sir Claude, this time, was disconcerted.
" The old cat ! She never told me. Then you
thought I lied? " he demanded of Maisie.

She was flurried by the term with which
he had qualified her patient friend, but she
felt the occasion to be one to which she must
in every way lend herself. " Oh, I did n't
mind ! But Mrs. Wix did," she added with
an intention benevolent to her governess.

Her intention was not very effective as
regards Mrs. Beale. " Mrs. Wix is too idi-
otic ! " that lady declared.

" But to you, of all people," Sir Claude
asked, "what had she to say?"

" Why, that, like Mrs. Micawber — whom
she must, I think, rather resemble — she will
never, never, never desert Miss Farange."

" Oh, I '11 make that all right ! " Sir Claude
cheerfully returned.

" I 'm sure I hope so, my dear man," said
Mrs. Beale, while Maisie wondered just how
he would proceed. Before she had time to

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 161

ask Mrs. Beale continued: "That's not all
she came to do, if you please. But you '11
never guess the rest."

" Shall / guess it? " Maisie threw in.

Mrs. Beale was again amused. " Why,
you 're just the person ! It must be quite
the sort of thing you Ve heard at your
awful mother's. Have you never seen women
there crying to her to ' spare ' the men they
love?"

Maisie, wondering, tried to remember;
but Sir Claude was freshly diverted. " Oh,
they don't trouble about Ida! Mrs. Wix
cried to you to spare me? "

" She regularly went down on her knees
to me."

"The darling old dear! " the young man
exclaimed.

These words were a joy to Maisie — they
made up for his previous description of Mrs.
Wix. "And will you spare him?" she
asked of Mrs. Beale.

Her stepmother, seizing her and kissing
her again, seemed charmed with the tone
of her question. " Not an inch of him !
I '11 pick him to the bone ! "

" You mean then he '11 really come often? "
Maisie pressed.

ii

162 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Mrs. Beale turned lovely eyes to Sir
Claude. "That's not for me to say — it's
for him."

He said nothing for the time, however ; with
his hands in his pockets and vaguely hum-
ming a tune — even Maisie could see he was
a little nervous — he only walked to the win-
dow and looked out at the Regent's Park.
" Well, he has promised," Maisie said. " But
how will papa like it? "

"His being in and out? Ah, that's a
question that, to be frank with you, my dear,
hardly matters. In point of fact, however,
Beale greatly enjoys the idea that Sir Claude
too, poor man, has been forced to quarrel
with your mother."

Sir Claude turned round and spoke gravely
and kindly. " Don't be afraid, Maisie ; you
won't lose sight of me."

" Thank you so much ! " Maisie was ra-
diant. " But what I meant — don't you
know? — was what papa would say to
me."

" Oh, I Ve been having that out with him,"
said Mrs. Beale — " he '11 behave well enough.
You see the great difficulty is that, though
he changes every three days about every-
thing else in the world, he has never changed

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 163

about your mother. It 's a caution, the way
he hates her."

Sir Claude gave a short laugh. " It cer-
tainly can't beat the way she still hates him ! "

" Well," Mrs. Beale went on obligingly,
" nothing can take the place of that feeling
with either of them, and the best way they
can think of to show it is for each to leave
you as long as possible on the hands of the
other. There 's nothing, as you Ve seen for
yourself, that makes either so furious. It
is n't, asking so little as you do, that you Ve
much of an expense or a trouble ; it 's only
that you make each feel so well how nasty
the other wants to be. Therefore Beale goes
on loathing your mother too much to have
any great fury left for any one else. Besides,
you know, I Ve squared him."

" Oh Lord ! " Sir Claude cried with a louder
laugh and turning again to the window.

" 7 know how ! " Maisie was prompt to
return. " By letting him do what he wants
on condition that he lets you also do it."

" You 're too delicious, my own pet ! " —
she was involved in another hug. " How in
the world have I got on so long without you ?
I've not been happy, love," said Mrs. Beale
with her cheek to the child's.

164 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" Be happy now ! " Maisie throbbed with
shy tenderness.

" I think I shall be. You '11 save me."

" As I 'm saving Sir Claude? " the little girl
precipitated.

Mrs. Beale, a trifle surprised, appealed to
her visitor. "Is she really?"

He showed high amusement at Maisie's
question. " It 's dear Mrs. Wix's idea. There
may be something in it."

" He makes me his duty — he makes me
his life," Maisie continued to her stepmother.

" Why, that 's what / want to do ! " And
Mrs. Beale, so anticipated, turned pink with
astonishment.

" Well, you can do it together. Then he '11
have to come ! "

Mrs. Beale by this time had her young
friend fairly in her lap ; she smiled up at Sir
Claude. " Shall we do it together? "

His laughter had dropped and for a mo-
ment he turned his handsome, serious face
not to his hostess, but to his stepdaughter.
" Well, it 's rather more decent than some
things. Upon my soul, the way things are
going, it seems to me the only decency ! "
He had the air of arguing it out to Maisie,
of presenting it, through an impulse of con-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 165

science, as a connection in which they could
honorably see her participate; though this
plea of mere " decency " might well have
appeared to fall below her rosy little vision.
"If we're notjgood for you," he exclaimed,
" I '11 be hanged if I know who we shall be
good for ! "

Mrs. Beale showed the child an intenser
radiance. " I dare say you will save us —
from one thing and another."

" Oh, I know what she '11 save me from ! "
Sir Claude roundly declared. "There'll be
rows, of course," he went on.

Mrs. Beale quickly took him up. " Yes,
but they'll be nothing — for you, at least —
to the rows your wife makes as it is. I can
bear what / suffer — I can't bear what you
do."

" We 're doing a good deal for you, you
know, young woman," Sir Claude went on to
Maisie with the same gravity.

His little charge glowed with a sense of
obligation and the eagerness of her desire it
should be known how little was lost on her.
" Oh, I know ! "

" Then you must keep us all right ! " This
time he laughed.

" How you talk to her ! " cried Mrs. Beale.

166 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" No worse than you ! " he gayly rejoined.

" Handsome is that handsome does ! " she
exclaimed in the same spirit. " You can
take off your things," she went on, releasing
Maisie.

The child, on her feet, was all emotion.
"Then I'm just to stop — this way? "

" It will do as well as any other. Sir
Claude, to-morrow, will have your things
brought."

" I '11 bring them myself. Upon my word
I '11 see them packed ! " Sir Claude promised.
" Come here and unbutton."

He had beckoned his young companion to
where he sat and he helped to disengage her
from her coverings while Mrs. Beale, from a
little distance, smiled at the hand he dis-
played. " There 's a stepfather for you ! I 'm
bound to say, you know, that he makes up
for the want of other people."

" He makes up for the want of a good
nurse ! " Sir Claude laughed. " Don't you re-
member I told you so the very first time? "

"Remember? It was exactly what made
me think so well of you ! "

" Nothing would induce me," the young
man said to Maisie, " to tell you what made
me think so well of her" Having divested

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 167

the child he kissed her gently and gave her a
little pat to make her stand off. The pat was
accompanied with a vague sigh, in which his
gravity of a moment before came back. " All
the same, if you had n't had the fatal gift of
beauty — "

'•Well, what?" Maisie asked, wondering
why he paused. It was the first time she had
heard of her beauty.

" Why, we should n't all be thinking so
well of each other ! "

" He is n't speaking of personal loveli-
ness — you 're not lovely in person, my dear,
at all," Mrs. Beale explained. "He's just
talking of plain, dull charm of character."

"Her character's the most extraordinary
thing in all the world," Sir Claude com-
municated to Mrs. Beale.

" Oh, I know all about that sort of thing ! "
— she fairly bridled with the knowledge.

It gave Maisie somehow a sudden sense of
responsibility, from which she sought refuge.
"Well, you've got it too, 'that sort of
thing ' — you Ve got the fatal gift, you both
really have ! " she broke out.

" Beauty of character? My dear boy, we
have n't a pennyworth ! " Sir Claude protested.

" Speak for yourself, sir ! " leaped lightly

168 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

from Mrs. Beale. " I 'm good and I 'm
clever. What more do you want? For
you, I '11 spare your blushes and not be
personal — I '11 simply say that you 're as
handsome as you can stick together."

" You 're both very lovely ; you can't get
out of it ! " — Maisie felt the need of carrying
her point " And it 's beautiful to see you
together."

Sir Claude had taken his hat and stick ; he
stood looking at her a moment. " You 're a
comfort in trouble! But I must go home
and pack."

"And when will you come back? — to-
morrow, to-morrow?"

" You see what we 're in for ! " he said to
Mrs. Beale.

" Well, / can bear it," she replied, " if you
can."

Their companion gazed from one of them
to the other, thinking that though she had
been happy indeed between Sir Claude and
Mrs. Wix, she should evidently be happier
still between Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale.
But it was like being perched on a prancing
horse, and she made a movement to hold on
to something. " Then, you know, sha'n't I
bid good-bye to Mrs. Wix?"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 169

" Oh, I '11 make it all right with her," said
Sir Claude.

Maisie considered. " And with mamma? "

" Ah, mamma ! " he sadly laughed.

Even for the child this was scarcely am-
biguous ; but Mrs. Beale endeavored to con-
tribute to its clearness. " Your mother will
crow, she '11 crow — "

" Like the early bird ! " said Sir Claude as
she looked about for a comparison.

" She '11 need no consolation," Mrs. Beale
went on, " for having made your father grandly
blaspheme."

Maisie stared. " Will he grandly blas-
pheme?" It sounded picturesque, almost
scriptural, and her question produced a
fresh play of caresses, in which Sir Claude
also engaged. She wondered meanwhile
who, if Mrs. Wix was disposed of, would
represent in her life the element of geog-
raphy and anecdote; and she presently
surmounted the delicacy she felt about ask-
ing. " Won't there be any one to give me
lessons?"

Mrs. Beale was prepared with a reply that
struck her as absolutely magnificent. " You
shall have such lessons as you Ve never had
in all your life. You shall go to courses."

iyo WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" Courses?" Maisie had never heard of
such things.

" At institutions — on subjects."

Maisie continued to stare. "Subjects?"

Mrs. Beale was really splendid. " All the
most important ones. French literature —
and sacred history. You '11 take part in
classes — with awfully smart children.1'

" I 'm going to look thoroughly into the
whole thing, you know; " and Sir Claude,
with characteristic kindness, gave her a nod
of assurance accompanied by a friendly wink.

But Mrs. Beale went much further. " My
dear child, you shall attend lectures."

The horizon was suddenly vast, and Maisie
herself felt the smaller for it. " All alone? "

" Oh, no ; I '11 attend them with you," said
Sir Claude. " They '11 teach me a lot I don't
know."

" So they will me," Mrs. Beale gravely ad-
mitted. "We'll go with her together— it
will be charming. It Js ages," she confessed
to Maisie, " since I Ve had any time for
study. That 's another sweet way in which
you '11 be a motive to us. Oh, won't the
good she'll do us be immense?" she broke
out uncontrollably to Sir Claude.

He weighed it ; then he replied : " That 's

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 171

certainly our idea." Of this idea Maisie
naturally had less of a grasp, but it inspired
her with almost equal enthusiasm. If in so
bright a prospect there would be nothing to
long for, it followed that she would n't long
for Mrs. Wix; but her consciousness of her
assent to the absence of that fond figure
caused a pair of words that had often
sounded in her ears to ring in them again.
It showed her in short what her father had
always meant by calling her mother a " low
sneak " and her mother by calling her father
one. She wondered if she herself should n't
be a low sneak in learning to be so happy
without Mrs. Wix. What would Mrs. Wix
do? where would Mrs. Wix go? Before
Maisie knew it, and at the door, as Sir
Claude was off, these anxieties, on her
lips, grew articulate and her stepfather
had stopped long enough to answer them.
" Oh, I '11 square her ! " he said ; and with
this he departed.

Face to face with Mrs. Beale she gave a
sigh of relief, looking round at what seemed
to her the dawn of a higher order. " Then
every one will be squared ! " she peacefully
said. On which her stepmother affection-
ately bent over her again.

172 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

XV

IT was Susan Ash who came to her with
the news. " He 's downstairs, miss, and he
do look beautiful."

In the schoolroom at her father's, which
had pretty blue curtains, she had been mak-
ing out at the piano a lovely little thing,
as Mrs. Beale called it, a " Moonlight Ber-
ceuse" sent her through the post by Sir
Claude, who considered that her musical
education had been deplorably neglected
and who, the last months at her mother's,
had been on the point of making arrange-
ments for regular lessons. She knew from
him familiarly that the real thing, as he
said, was shockingly dear and that anything
else was a waste of money, and she therefore
rejoiced the more at the sacrifice represented
by this composition, of which the price, five
shillings, was marked on the cover and which
was evidently the real thing. She was now
on her feet in an instant. " Mrs. Beale has
sent up for me? "

" Oh, no — it 's not that," said Susan Ash.
" Mrs. Beale has been out this hour."

"Then papa?"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 173

" Dear no — not papa. You '11 do, miss,
all but them loose 'airs," Susan went on.
" Your papa never came 'ome at all," she
added.

"From where?" Wondering a little ab-
sently and very excitedly, Maisie gave a wild
manual brush of her locks.

" Oh, that, miss, I should be very sorry
to tell you ! I 'd rather tuck away that white
thing behind — though I 'm blessed if it's my
work."

" Do then, please. I know where papa
was," Maisie continued impatiently.

" Well, in your place I would n't tell."

" He was at the club — the Chrysanthe-
mum. So ! "

"All night long? Why, the flowers shut
up at night, you know ! " cried Susan Ash.

" Well, I don't care " — the child was at
the door. " Sir Claude asked for me all
alone?"

" The same as if you was a duchess."

Maisie was aware on her way downstairs
that she was now quite as happy as one,
and also, a moment later, as she hung round
his neck, that even such a personage would
scarce commit herself more grandly. There
was moreover a hint of the duchess in the

174 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

infinite point with which, as she felt, she
exclaimed : " And this is what you call com-
ing often?"

Sir Claude met her, delightfully, in the
same fine spirit. " My dear old man, don't
make me a scene — I assure you it's what
every woman does that I look at. Let us
have some fun — it 's a lovely day : clap on
something smart and come out with me —
then we '11 talk it over quietly." They were
on their way five minutes later to Hyde
Park, and nothing that even in the good
days at her mother's they had ever talked
over had more of the perfection of security
than his present prompt explanations. He
was at his best in such an office and with
the exception of Mrs. Wix the only person
she had met in her life who ever explained.
With him, however, the act had an authority
transcending the wisdom of woman. It all
came back, all the plans that always failed,
all the rewards and bribes that she was
perpetually paying for in advance and per-
petually out of pocket by afterwards — the
whole complication to be dealt with intro-
duced her on each occasion afresh to the
question of money. Even she herself al-
most knew how it would have expressed the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 175

strength of his empire to say that to shuffle
away her sense of being duped he had only
from under his lovely moustache to breathe
upon it. It was somehow in the nature of
plans to be expensive and in the nature of
the expensive to be impossible. To be
" involved " was of the essence of every-
body's affairs, and also at every particular
moment to be more involved than usual.
This had been the case with Sir Claude's,
with papa's, with mamma's, with Mrs. Beale's,
and with Maisie's own at the particular mo-
ment, a moment of several weeks, that had
elapsed since our young lady had been re-
established at her father's. There was n't
" two-and-tuppence " for anything or for any
one, and that was why there had been no
sequel to the classes in French literature
with all the smart little girls. It was devilish
awkward, didn't she see? to try without
even the modest sum mentioned to mix her
up with a remote array that glittered be-
fore her after this as the children of the
Rich. She was to feel henceforth as if she
were flattening her nose upon the hard win-
dow-pane of the sweet-shop of knowledge.
If the classes, however, that were select and
accordingly the only ones were impossibly

176 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

dear, the lectures at the institutions — at
least at some of them — were directly ad-
dressed to the intelligent poor, and it there-
fore had to be easier still to produce on the
spot the reason why she had been taken to
none. This reason, Sir Claude said, was
that she happened to be just going to be,
though indeed they had nothing to do with
that in now directing their steps to the banks
of the Serpentine. Maisie's own park, in the
north, had been nearer at hand; but they
rolled westward in a hansom because at the
end of the sweet June days that was the
direction taken by every one any one looked
at. They cultivated for an hour, on the Row
arid by the Drive, this opportunity for each
observer to amuse and for one of them in-
deed not a little hilariously to mystify the
other, and before the hour was over Maisie
had elicited in reply to her sharpest challenge
a further account of her friend's long absence.

" Why I Ve broken my word to you so
dreadfully — promising so solemnly and then
never coming? Well, my dear, that's a ques-
tion that, not seeing me day after day, you
must very often have put to Mrs. Beale."

" Oh, yes," the child replied ; " again and
again."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 177

" And what has she told you ? "

" That you 're as bad as you 're beautiful."

" Is that what she says? "

" Those very words."

" Ah, the dear old soul ! " Sir Claude was
much diverted, and his loud, clear laugh was
all his explanation. Those were just the
words Maisie had last heard him use about
Mrs. Wix. She clung to his hand, which was
encased in a pearl-gray glove ornamented
with the thick black lines that, at her
mother's, always used to strike her as con-
nected with the way the bestitched fists of the
long ladies carried, with the elbows well out,
their umbrellas upside down. The mere
sense of it in her own covered the ground
of loss just as much as the ground of gain.
His presence was like an object brought so
close to her face that she could n't see round
its edges. He himself, however, remained
showman of the spectacle even after they
had passed out of the park and begun, under
the charm of the spot and the season, to stroll
in Kensington Gardens. What they had left
behind them was, as he said, only a pretty
bad circus, and, through engaging gates and
over a bridge, they had come in a quarter
of an hour, as he also remarked, a hundred

12

178 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

miles from London. A great green glade
was before them, and high old trees, and
under the shade of these, in the fresh turf,
the crooked course of a rural footpath. " It's
the Forest of Arden," Sir Claude had just
delightfully observed, " and I 'm the banished
duke, and you 're — what was the young
woman called ? — the artless country wench.
And there," he went on, " is the other girl —
what's her name, Rosalind? — and (don't you
know?) the fellow who was making up to her.
Upon my word he is making up to her ! "

His allusion was to a couple who, side by
side, at the end of the glade, were moving in
the same direction as themselves. These
distant figures, in the slow stroll which kept
them so close together that their heads,
drooping a little forward, almost touched,
presented the back of a lady who looked tall,
who was evidently a very fine woman, and
that of a gentleman whose left hand appeared
to be passed well into her arm while his
right, behind him, made jerky motions with
the stick that it grasped. Maisie's fancy
responded for an instant to her friend's idea
that the sight was idyllic; then, stopping
short, she brought out with all her clearness :
" Why, mercy — if it is n't mamma !"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 179

Sir Claude paused with a stare. " Mamma ?
Why, mamma 's at Brussels ! "

Maisie, with her eyes on the lady, wondered.
"At Brussels?"

" She 's gone to play a match."

" At billiards? You did n't tell me."

" Of course I did n't ! " Sir Claude ejacu-
lated. " There 's plenty I don't tell you.
She went on Wednesday."

The couple had added to their distance,
but Maisie's eyes more than kept pace with
them. " Then she has come back."

Sir Claude watched the lady. " It 's much
more likely she never went ! "

" It 's mamma ! " the child said with
decision.

They had stood still, but Sir Claude had
made the most of his opportunity and it hap-
pened that just at this moment, at the end
of the vista, the others halted and, still show-
ing only their backs, seemed to stay talking.
" Right you are, my duck ! " he exclaimed at
last " It 's my own sweet wife ! "

He had spoken with a laugh, but he had
changed color, and Maisie quickly looked
away from him. " Then who is it with her?"

" Blest if I know ! " said Sir Claude.

"Is it Mr. Perriam?"

i8o WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" Oh, dear no — Perriam 's smashed."

"Smashed?"

" Exposed — in the City. But there are
quantities of others ! " Sir Claude threw in.

Maisie grouped them ; she studied the gen-
tleman's back. " Then is this Lord Eric?"

For a moment her companion made no
answer, and when she turned her eyes again
to him he was looking at her, she thought,
rather queerly. " What do you know about
Lord Eric?"

She tried, innocently, to be odd in return.
" Oh, I know more than you think ! Is it
Lord Eric?" she repeated.

" It may be. Blest if I care ! "

Their friends had slightly separated, and
now, as Sir Claude spoke, they suddenly
faced round, showing all the splendor of her
ladyship and all the mystery of her comrade.
Maisie held her breath. " They're coming ! "

" Let them come." And Sir Claude, pull-
ing out his cigarettes, began to strike a
light.

" We shall meet them?" the child asked.

" No ; they '11 meet us"

Maisie stood her ground. "They see us.
Just look."

Sir Claude threw away his match. " Come

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 181

straight on." The others, in the return,
evidently startled, had half paused again,
keeping now well apart. " She 's horribly
surprised and she wants to slope," he con-
tinued. " But it's too late."

Maisie advanced beside him, making out
even across the interval that her ladyship
was ill at ease. " Then what will she do ? "

Sir Claude puffed his cigarette. " She 's
quickly thinking." He appeared to enjoy it.

Ida had faltered but an instant ; her com-
panion clearly gave her moral support.
Maisie thought he somehow looked brave,
and he had indeed no likeness whatever to
Mr. Perriam. His face, thin and rather
sharp, was smooth, and it was not till they
came nearer that she saw he had a remark-
ably fair little moustache. She could already
see that his eyes were of the lightest blue.
He was far nicer than Mr. Perriam. Mamma
looked terrible from afar, but even under her
guns the child's curiosity flickered and she
appealed again to Sir Claude. " Is it — is it
Lord Eric?"

Sir Claude smoked composedly enough.
" I think it 's the Baron."

This was a happy solution — it fitted her
idea of a Baron. But what idea, as she now

i82 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

came grandly on, did mamma fit? — unless
that of an actress, in some tremendous situa-
tion, sweeping down to the footlights as if
she would jump them. Maisie felt really
frightened and before she knew it had passed
her hand into Sir Claude's arm. Her pressure
caused him to stop, and at the sight of this
the other couple came equally to a stand and,
beyond the diminished space, remained a
moment more, in talk. This, however, was
the matter of an instant; leaving the Baron
apparently to come round more circuitously
— an outflanking movement if Maisie had
but known — her ladyship resumed the direct
approach. " What will she do? " her daugh-
ter articulated.

Sir Claude was now in a position to say.
" Try to pretend it 's me."

"You?"

" Why, that / Jm up to something."

In another minute poor Ida had justified
this prediction, erect there before them like
a figure of justice in full dress. There were
parts of her face that grew whiter while
Maisie looked, and other parts in which this
change seemed to make other colors reign
with more intensity. " What are you doing
with my daughter?" she demanded of her

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 183

husband; in spite of the indignant tone of
which Maisie had a greater sense than ever
in her life before of not being personally
noticed. It seemed to her that Sir Claude
also grew pale as an effect of the loud defi-
ance with which Ida twice repeated this
question. He put her, instead of answering
it, an inquiry of his own : " Who the devil
have you got hold of now ?" and at this her
ladyship turned tremendously to the child,
glaring at her as if she were an equal figure
of guilt. Maisie received in petrifaction the
full force of her mother's huge painted eyes
— they were like Japanese lanterns swung
under festive arches. But life came back to
her from a tone suddenly and strangely soft-
ened. " Go straight to that gentleman, my
dear ; I Ve requested him to take you a few
minutes. He's charming — go. I Ve some-
thing to say to this creature."

Maisie felt Sir Claude immediately clutch
her. " No, no — thank you ; that won't do.
She's mine."

"Yours?" It was confounding to Maisie
to hear her speak quite as if she had never
heard of Sir Claude before.

" Mine ; you Ve given her up. You Ve not
another word to say about her. I have her

184 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

from her father," said Sir Claude — a state-
ment that astonished his companion, who
could also measure its lively action on her
mother.

There was visibly, however, an influence
that made Ida consider ; she glanced at the
gentleman she had left, who, having strolled
with his hands in his pockets to some dis-
tance, stood there with unembarrassed vague-
ness. With her great hard eyes on him for
a moment she smiled ; then she looked again
at Sir Claude. " I Ve given her up to her
father to keep — not to get rid of by sending
her about the town either with you or with any
one else. If she 's not to mind me, let him
come and tell me so. I decline to take it
from another person, and you 're a fool to
pretend that, with your hypocritical med-
dling, you Ve a leg to stand on. I know
your game, and I Ve something now to say to
you about it."

Sir Claude gave a squeeze of the child's
arm. " Did n't I tell you she would have,
Miss Farange?"

" You 're uncommonly afraid to hear it,"
Ida went on ; " but if you think she '11 pro-
tect you from it you 're mightily mistaken."
She meant what she said. " I '11 give her the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 185

benefit as soon as look at you. Should you
like her to know, my dear?" Maisie had a
sense of her launching this inquiry at him
with effect; yet our young lady was also
conscious of hoping that Sir Claude would
reply in the affirmative. We have already
learned that she had come to like people's
liking her to " know." Before he could re-

o

ply at all, however, her mother opened a pair
of arms of extraordinary elegance, and then
she felt the loosening of his grasp. " My
own child," Ida murmured in a voice — a
voice of sudden confused tenderness — that
it seemed to her she heard for the first time.
She wavered but an instant, thrilled with the
first direct appeal, as distinguished from the
mere maternal pull, she had ever had from
lips that even in the old vociferous years
had always been sharp. The next moment
she was on her mother's breast, where, amid
a wilderness of trinkets, she felt as if she had
suddenly been thrust into a jeweller's shop-
front, but only to be as suddenly ejected with
a push and the brisk injunction : " Now go
to the Captain ! "

Maisie glanced at the gentleman submis-
sively, but felt the want of more introduction.
"The Captain?"

186 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Sir Claude broke into a laugh. " I told
her he was the Baron."

Ida stared; she rose so superior that she
was colossal. " You 're too utterly loath-
some," she then ejaculated. "Be off!" she
repeated to her daughter.

Maisie started, moved backward and, look-
ing at Sir Claude, " Only for a moment," she
said to him in her bewilderment.

But he was too angry to heed her — too
angry with his wife ; as she turned away she
heard his anger break out. " You damned

old b ! " She could n't quite hear all.

But it was enough, it was too much : she fled
before it, rushing even to a stranger in her
terror of such a change of tone.

XVI

As she met the Captain's light blue eyes
the greatest wonder occurred : she felt a sud-
den relief at finding them reply with anxiety
to the horror in her face. "What in the
world has he done?" He put it all on Sir
Claude.

" He has called her a damned old brute ! "
She could n't help bringing that out.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 187

The Captain, at the same elevation as her
ladyship, gaped wide; then of course, like
every one else, he was convulsed. But he
instantly caught himself up, echoing her
bad words. "A damned old brute — your
mother?"

Maisie had already her second movement.
" I think she tried to make him angry."

The Captain's stupefaction was fine. " An-
gry? — she f Why, she 's an angel ! "

On the spot, as he said this, his face won
her over ; it was so bright and kind and his
blue eyes had such a reflection of some mys-
terious grace that, for him at least, her mother
had put forth. Her fund of observation en-
abled her, as she gazed up at him, to place
him : he was a candid, simple soldier, very
brave — she came back to that — but at the
same time very soft. At any rate he struck a
note that was new to her and that after a moment
made her say : " Do you like her very much ? "

He smiled down at her, hesitating but look-
ing pleasanter and pleasanter. " Let me tell
you about your mother ! "

He put out a big military hand which she
immediately took, and they turned off to-
gether to where a couple of chairs had been
placed under one of the trees. " She told

i88 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

me to come to you," Maisie explained as
they went; and presently she was close to
him in one of the chairs, with the prettiest
of pictures, the sheen of the lake through
other trees before them and the sound of
birds, the splash of boats, the play of children
in the air. The Captain, inclining his mili-
tary person, sat sideways, to be closer and
kinder, and as her hand was on the arm of
her seat he put his own down on it again
to emphasize something he had to say that
would be good for her to hear. He had
already told her how her mother, from the
moment of seeing her so unexpectedly with
a person who was — well, not at all the right
person, had promptly asked him to take
charge of her while she herself tackled, as
she said, the real culprit. He gave the child
the sense of doing for the moment what he
liked with her; ten minutes before she had
never seen him, but she now could sit there
touching him, impressed by him and think-
ing it nice when a gentleman was thin and
brown — brown with a kind of clear depth
that made his straw-colored moustache almost
white and his eyes resemble little pale flowers.
The most extraordinary thing was the way
she did n't seem for the time to mind Sir

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 189

Claude's being "tackled." The Captain
was n't a bit like him ; for it was an odd part
of the pleasantness of mamma's friend that
it resided in a manner in this friend's being
ugly. An odder part still was that it pres-
ently made our young lady, to classify him
further, say to herself that of all people in
the world he reminded her most insidiously
of Mrs. Wix. He had neither straighteners
nor a diadem nor, at least in the same place
as the other, a button ; he was sunburnt and
deep-voiced and smelt of cigars ; yet he mar-
vellously had more in common with her old
governess than with her young stepfather.
What he had to say to her that was good for
her to hear was that her poor mother, did n't
she know? was the best friend he had ever
had in all his life. And he added : " She
has told me ever so much about you. I 'm
awfully glad to know you."

She had never, she thought, been so ad-
dressed as a young lady; not even by Sir
Claude the day so long ago that she found
him with Mrs. Beale. It struck her as the
way that, at balls, by delightful partners,
young ladies must be spoken to in the in-
tervals of dances ; and she tried to think of
something1 that would meet it at the same

190 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

high point. But this effort flurried her and
all she could produce was : " At first, you
know, I thought you were Lord Eric."

The Captain looked vague. " Lord Eric? "

"And then Sir Claude thought you were
the Baron."

At this he resounded. " Why, the Baron's
four foot high and as red as a lobster."
Maisie laughed in return — the young lady
at the ball certainly would — and was on the
point, as conscientiously, of pursuing the sub-
ject with an agreeable question. But before
she could speak her companion asked her
one. " Who in the world 's Lord Eric?"

" Don't you know him? " — she judged her
young lady would say that with light surprise.

" Do you mean a fat man with his mouth
always open ? " She had to confess that their
acquaintance was so limited that she could
only describe the bearer of the name as a
friend of mamma's ; but a light suddenly
came to the Captain, who quickly asserted
that he knew her man. " What-do-you-call-
him's brother — the fellow that owned ' Bobo-
link ' ? " Then, with all his niceness, he con-
tradicted her flat. " Oh, dear no — your
mother never knew him"

" But Mrs. Wix said so," the child risked.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 191

"Mrs. Wix?"

" My old governess."

This again seemed amusing to the Captain.
"She mixed him up, your old governess.
He's an awful beast. Your mother never
looked at such a hog."

He was as positive as he was friendly, but
he dropped for a minute after this into a
silence that gave Maisie, confused but in-
genious, a chance to redeem the mistake of
pretending to know too much by the humility
of inviting further correction. " And does n't
she know the Baron?"

" Oh, I dare say. But he 's another ass."
After which, abruptly, with a different look,
he put down again on the back of her
own the hand he had momentarily removed.
Maisie even thought he colored a little. " I
want tremendously to speak to you. You
must never believe any harm of your mother."

"Oh, I assure you I dorit!" she cried,
blushing, herself, up to her eyes in a sudden
surge of deprecation of such a thought.

The Captain, bending his head, raised her
hand to his lips with a benevolence that made
her wish her glove had been nicer. " Of
course you don't when you know how fond
she is viyou"

192 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" She 's fond of me?" Maisie panted.

" Tremendously. But she thinks you don't
like her. You must like her. She has had
too much to bear."

" Oh, yes — I know ! " She rejoiced that
she had never denied it.

" Of course I Ve no right to speak of her
except as a particular friend," the Captain
went on. " But she 's a splendid woman.
She has never had any sort of justice."

"Hasn't she?" — the child, to hear the
words, felt a thrill altogether new.

" Perhaps I ought n't to say it to you —
but she has had everything to suffer."

" Oh, yes — you can say it to me ! " Maisie
hastened to profess.

The Captain weighed this. "Well, you
needn't tell. It's all for you — see?"

Serious and smiling, she only wanted to take
it from him. "It's between you and me?
Oh, there are lots of things I Ve never told."

" Well, keep this with the rest. I assure you
she has had the most infernal time, no matter
what any one says to the contrary. She 's the
cleverest woman I ever saw in all my life.
She 's too charming." She had been touched
already by his tone, and now she leaned back
in her chair and felt something tremble within

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 193

her. " She 's tremendous fun — she can do
all sorts of things better than I 've ever seen
anyone. She has the pluck of fifty — and
I know : I assure you I do. She has the nerve
for a tiger-shoot — by Jove, I 'd take her !
And she 's awfully open and generous, don't
you know? — there are women that are such
horrid sneaks. She 'd go through anything
for any one she likes." He appeared to watch
for a moment the effect on his companion of
this emphasis ; then he gave a small sigh that
mourned the limits of the speakable. But it
was almost with the note of a challenge that
he wound up : " Look here — she 's true ! "

Maisie had so little desire to assert the con-
trary that she found herself, in the intensity of
her response, throbbing with a joy still less
utterable than the essence of the Captain's
appreciation. She was fairly hushed with the
sense that he spoke of her mother as she had
never heard any one speak. It came over her
as she sat silent that, after all, this admiration
and this respect were quite new words, which
took a distinction from the fact that nothing in
the least resembling them in quality had on
any occasion dropped from the lips of her
father, of Mrs. Beale, of Sir Claude or even
of Mrs. Wix. What it appeared to her to
13

194 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

come to was that, on the subject of her lady-
ship, it was the first real kindness she had
heard, so that at the touch of it something
strange and deep and pitying surged up within
her — a revelation that, practically and so far
as she knew, her mother, apart from this, had
only been disliked. Mrs. Wix's original
account of Sir Claude's affection seemed as
empty now as the chorus in a children's game,
and the husband and wife, but a little way off
at that moment, were face to face in hatred and
with the dreadful name he had called her still
in the air. What was it the Captain on the
other hand had called her? — Maisie wanted
to hear that again. The tears filled her eyes
and rolled down her cheeks, which burned
under them with the rush of a consciousness
that for her too, five minutes before, the vivid,
towering beauty whose onset she awaited had
been for the moment an object of pure dread.
She became indifferent on the spot to her
usual fear of showing what in children was
notoriously most offensive — she presented to
her companion, soundlessly but hideously, her
wet, distorted face. She cried, with a pang,
straight at him, cried as she felt that she had
never cried at any one in all her life. " Oh,
do you love her? " she brought out with a gulp

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 195

that was the effect of her trying not to make
a noise.

It was doubtless another consequence of the
thick mist through which she saw him that, in
reply to her question, the Captain gave her
such a queer blurred look. He hesitated ; yet
in his voice there was also the ring of a great
awkward insistence. " Of course I 'm tre-
mendously fond of her — I like her better than
any woman I ever saw. I don't mind in the
least telling you that," he went on ; " and I
should think myself a great beast if I did."
Then, to show that his position was superla-
tively clear, he made her, with a kindness that
even Sir Claude had never surpassed, tremble
again as she had trembled at his first outbreak.
He called her by her name, and her name
drove it home. " My dear Maisie, your
mother 's an angel ! "

It was an almost incredible balm — it
soothed so her impression of danger and
pain. She sank back in her chair; she
covered her face with her hands. " Oh,
mother, mother, mother ! " she sobbed. She
had a vague sense that the Captain, beside
her, though more and more friendly, was by
no means unembarrassed ; in a minute, how-
ever, when her eyes were clearer, he was erect

196 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

in front of her, very red and nervously looking

about him and whacking his leg with his stick.

" Say you love her, Mr. Captain — say it, say

it ! " she implored.

Mr. Captain's blue eyes fixed themselves

very hard. " Of course I love her, damn it,

you know."

At this she also jumped up ; she had fished

out somehow her pocket-handkerchief. " So

do /, then — I do, I do, I do ! " she passion-
ately cried.

" Then will you come back to her? "
Maisie, staring, stopped the tight little plug

of her handkerchief on the way to her eyes.

" She won't have me ! "

" Yes, she will. She wants you."

" Back at the house — with Sir Claude ? "

Again he stopped. "No, not with him.

In another place."

They stood looking at each other with an

intensity unusual as between a Captain and a

little girl. " She won't have me in any place."
" Oh yes, she will — if / ask her."
Maisie's intensity continued. " Shall you

be there?"

The Captain's, on the whole, did the same,

" Oh yes — some day."

"Then you don't mean now? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 197

He broke into a quick smile. " Will you
come now? — go with us for an hour?"

Maisie considered. " She would n't have
me even now."

She could see that he had his idea, but that
her tone impressed him. That disappointed
her a little, though in an instant he rang out
again. " She will if / ask her," he repeated.
" I '11 ask her this minute."

Maisie, turning at this, looked away to
where her mother and her stepfather had
stopped. At first, among the trees, nobody
was visible; but the next moment she ex-
claimed with expression : " It 's over — here
he comes ! "

The Captain watched the approach of her
ladyship's husband, who walked slow and
composed across the grass, making, with his
closed fingers, to Maisie, a little movement
in the air. " I Ve no desire to avoid him."

"Well, you mustn't see him," said Maisie.

" Oh, he's in no hurry himself!" Sir
Claude had stopped to light another cigarette.

She was vague as to the way it was proper
he should feel ; but she had a sense that the
Captain's remark was rather a free reflection.
" Oh, he does n't care," she replied.

" Does n't care for what? "

198 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" Does n't care who you are. He told me
so. Go and ask mamma," she added.

"If you can come with us? Very good.
You really want me not to wait for him?"

" Please don't." But Sir Claude was not
yet near, and the Captain had with his left
hand taken hold of her right, which he
familiarly, sociably swung a little. "Only
first," she continued, "tell me this. Are you
going to live with mamma? "

The immemorial note broke out at her
seriousness. " One of these days."

She wondered, wholly unperturbed by his
laughter. " Then where will Sir Claude be? "

" He '11 have left her of course."

" Does he really intend to do that? "

" You have every opportunity to ask him."

Maisie shook her head with decision. " He
won't do it. Not first."

Her " first " made the Captain resound
again. " Oh, he '11 be sure to be nasty ! But
I've said too much to you."

"Well, you know, I'll never tell," said
Maisie.

" No, it's all for yourself. Good-bye."

" Good-bye." Maisie kept his hand long
enough to add : " I like you, too." And
then supremely: " You do love her? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 199

" My dear child — ! " The Captain wanted
words.

" Then don't do it only for just a little."

"A little?"

" Like all the others."

" Like all the others? " — he stood staring.

She pulled away her hand. " Do it al-
ways ! " Then she bounded to meet Sir
Claude and as she left the Captain she heard
him sound out with apparent gayety : " Oh,
I '11 keep it up ! " As she joined Sir Claude
she perceived her mother, in the distance,
move slowly off; and, glancing again at
the Captain, saw him, swinging his stick,
retreat in the same direction.

She had never seen Sir Claude look as he
looked just then ; flushed, yet not excited —
settled rather in an immovable disgust and
at once very sick and very hard. His con-
versation with her mother had clearly drawn
blood, and the child's old horror came back
to her, producing the instant moral contrac-
tion of the days when her parents had looked
to her to feed their love of battle. Her great-
est fear for the moment, however, was that
her friend would see she had been crying.
The next she became aware that he glanced
at her and it presently occurred to her that

200 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

he did n't wish even to be looked at. At
this she quickly removed her gaze, and
he said rather curtly : " Well, who in the
world is the fellow?"

She felt herself flooded with prudence.
" Oh, / have n't found out ! " This sounded
as if she meant he ought to have done so
himself; but she could only face doggedly
the ugliness of seeming disagreeable as she
used to face it in the hours when her father,
for her blankness, called her a dirty little
donkey and her mother, for her falsity, pushed
her out of the room.

" Then what have you been doing all this
time?"

" Oh, I don't know." It was of the essence
of her method not to be silly by halves.

" Then did n't the scoundrel say anything? "
They had got down by the lake and were
walking fast.

" Well, not very much."

" He did n't speak of your mother? "

" Oh, yes, a little."

"Then what I ask you, please, is how."
She was silent a minute — so long that he
presently went on : "I say, you know —
don't you hear me? "

At this she produced: "Well, I'm afraid
I did n't attend to him very much."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 201

Sir Claude, smoking rather hard, made no
immediate rejoinder; but finally he ex-
claimed: "Then, my dear, you were the
perfection of an idiot ! " He was so irritated

— or she took him to be — that for the rest
of the time they were in the Gardens he spoke
no other word; and she meanwhile subtly
abstained from any attempt to pacify him.
That would only lead to more questions.
At the gate of the Gardens he hailed a four-
wheeled cab and without meeting her con-
scious eyes put her into it, only saying
" Give him that ! " as he tossed half a crown
upon the seat. Even when from outside he
had closed the door and told the man where
to go he never took her departing look.
Nothing of this kind had ever yet happened
to them, but it had no power to make her
love him less, and she could not only bear it

— she felt as she drove away that she could re-
joice in it. It brought again the sweet sense
of success that, ages before, she had had on
an occasion when, on the stairs, returning
from her father's, she had met a fierce ques-
tion of her mother's with an imbecility as
studied and had in consequence been dashed
by Mrs. Farange almost to the bottom.

202 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

XVII

IF for reasons wholly her own she could
bear the sense of Sir Claude's displeasure
her young endurance might have been put
to a serious test. The days went by without
his knocking at her father's door, and the
time would have turned to dreariness if some-
thing had not conspicuously happened to give
it a new difference. What took place was a
marked change in the attitude of Mrs. Beale
— a change that somehow even in his absence
seemed to bring Sir Claude again into the
house. It began practically with a con-
versation that occurred between them the
day Maisie came home alone in the cab.
Mrs. Beale had by that time returned, and
she was more successful than their friend in
extracting from our young lady an account
of the extraordinary passage with the Cap-
tain. She came back to it repeatedly, and
on the very next day it grew distinct to
Maisie that she was already in full possession
of what at the same moment had been en-
acted between her ladyship and Sir Claude.
This was the real origin of her final perception
that though he did n't come to the house

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 203

her stepmother had some subtle secret for
not being bereft of him. That produced
eventually a strange, a deeper communion
with Mrs. Beale, the first sign of which had
been — not on Maisie's part — a wonderful
outbreak of tears. Mrs. Beale was not, as
she herself said, a crying creature; she had
not cried, to Maisie's knowledge, since the
lowly governess days, the gray dawn of their
connection. But she wept now with passion,
professing loudly that it did her good and
saying remarkable things to the child, for
whom the occasion was an equal benefit, an
addition to all the fine reasons stored up for
not making anything worse. It had n't some-
how made anything worse, Maisie felt, for
her to have told Mrs. Beale what she had
not told Sir Claude, inasmuch as the greatest
strain, to her sense, was between Sir Claude
and Sir Claude's wife, and his wife was just
what Mrs. Beale was unfortunately not. He
sent his stepdaughter three days after the
incident in Kensington Gardens a message
as frank as it was tender, and that was how
Mrs. Beale had had to bring out in a manner
that seemed half an appeal, half a defiance :
" Well, yes, hang it — I do see him ! "

How and when and where, however, were

204 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

just what Maisie was not to know — an ex-
clusion moreover that she never questioned
in the light of a participation large enough
to make him, in hours of solitude with Mrs.
Beale, present like a picture on the wall. As
far as her father was concerned such hours
had no interruption ; and then it was clear
between them that they were each thinking
of the absent and each thinking that the
other thought; so that he was an object of
conscious reference in everything they said
or did. The wretched truth, Mrs. Beale had
to confess, was that she had hoped against
hope and that in the Regent's Park it was
impossible Sir Claude should really be in and
out. Had n't they at last to look the fact in
the face? — it was too disgustingly evident
that no one after all had been squared.
Well, if no one had been squared it was be-
cause every one had been vile. No one and
every one were of course Beale and Ida, the
extent of whose power to be nasty was a
thing that, to a little girl, Mrs. Beale simply
could n't communicate. Therefore it was
that to keep going at all, as she said, that
lady had to make, as she also said, another
arrangement — the arrangement in which
Maisie was included only to the point of

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 205

knowing that it existed and wondering wist-
fully what it was. Conspicuously at any
rate it had a side that was responsible for
Mrs. Beale's sudden emotion and sudden con-
fidence — a demonstration, however, of which
the tearfulness was far from deterrent to our
heroine's thought of how happy she should
be if she could only make an arrangement
for herself. Mrs. Beale's own operated, it
appeared, with regularity and frequency; for
it was almost every day or two that she was
able to bring Maisie a message and to take one
back. It had been over the vision of what,
as she called it, he did for her that she broke
down ; and this vision was kept in a manner
before Maisie by a subsequent increase not
only of the gayety, but literally — it seemed
not presumptuous to perceive — of the actual
virtue of her friend. The friend was herself
the first to proclaim it : he had pulled her up
immensely — he had quite pulled her round.
She had charming, tormenting words about
him : he was her good fairy, her hidden spring
— above all he was just her conscience.
That was what had particularly come out with
her startling tears : he had made her, dear
man, think ever so much better of herself.
It had been thus rather surprisingly revealed

206 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

that she had been in a way to think ill, and
Maisie was glad to hear of the corrective at
the same time that she heard of the ailment.

She presently found herself supposing and
in spite of her envy even hoping that when-
ever Mrs. Beale was out of the house Sir
Claude had in some manner the satisfaction
of it. This was now of more frequent oc-
currence than ever before — so much so that
she would have thought of her stepmother
as almost extravagantly absent had it not
been that in the first place her father was a
superior specimen of that habit: it was the
frequent remark of his present wife, as it had
been before the tribunals of their country a
conspicuous plea of her predecessor, that he
scarce came home even to sleep. In the
second place Mrs. Beale, when she was on
the spot, had now a beautiful air of longing
to make up for everything. The only shadow
in such bright intervals was that, as Maisie
put it to herself, she could get nothing by
questions. It was in the nature of things to
be none of a small child's business even
when a small child had from the first been
deluded into a fear that she might be only
too much initiated. Things then were in
Maisie's experience so true to their nature

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 207

that questions were almost always improper ;
but she learned on the other hand soon to
recognize that patient little silences and in-
telligent little looks could be rewarded from
time to time by delightful little glimpses.
There had been years at Beale Farange's
when the monosyllable " he " meant always,
meant almost violently the master; but all
that was changed at a period at which Sir
Claude's merits were of themselves so much
in the air that it scarce took even two letters
to name him. " He keeps me up splendidly
— he does, my own precious," Mrs. Beale
would observe to her companion ; or else
she would say that the situation at the other
establishment had reached a point that could
scarcely be believed — the point, monstrous
as it sounded, of his not having laid eyes upon
her for twelve days. " Her " of course at
Beale Farange's had never meant any one
but Ida, and there was the difference in this
case that it now meant Ida with renewed in-
tensity. Mrs. Beale was in a position strik-
ingly to animadvert more and more upon her
dreadfulness, the moral of all which appeared
to be how abominably yet blessedly little she
had to do with her husband. This flow of
information came home to our two friends

208 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

because truly Mrs. Beale had not much
more to do with her own ; but that was one
of the reflections that Maisie could make
without allowing it to break the spell of her
present sympathy. How could such a spell
be anything but deep when Sir Claude's in-
fluence, though operating from afar, at last
really determined the resumption of his
stepdaughter's studies? Mrs. Beale again
took fire about them and was quite vivid,
for Maisie, as to their being the great
matter to which the absent friend kept her
up.

This was the second source — I have just
alluded to the first — of the child's conscious-
ness of something that, very hopefully, she
described to herself as a new phase ; and it
also presented in the brightest light the fresh
enthusiasm with which Mrs. Beale always re-
appeared and which really gave Maisie a
happier sense than she had yet had of being
very dear at least to two persons. That she
had small remembrance at present of a third
illustrates, I am afraid, a temporary oblivion
of Mrs. Wix, an accident to be explained
only by a state of unnatural excitement. For
what was the form taken by Mrs. Beale's en-
thusiasm and acquiring relief in the domestic

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 209

conditions still left to her but the delightful
form of " reading " with her little charge on
lines directly prescribed and in works pro-
fusely supplied by Sir Claude ? He had got
hold of an awfully good list — "mostly es-
says, don't you know? " Mrs. Beale had said ;
a word always august to Maisie, but hence-
forth to be softened by hazy, in fact by quite
languorous edges. There was at any rate a
week in which no less than nine volumes ar-
rived, and the impression was to be gathered
from Mrs. Beale that the obscure intercourse
she enjoyed with Sir Claude not only involved
an account and a criticism of studies, but was
organized almost for the very purpose of re-
port and consultation. It was for Maisie's
education in short that, as she often re-
peated, she closed her door — closed it to the
gentlemen who used to flock there in such
numbers and whom her husband's practical
desertion of her would have made it a course
of the highest indelicacy to receive. Maisie
was familiar from of old with the principle
at least of the care that a woman, as Mrs.
Beale phrased it, attractive and exposed
must take of her tc character," and was duly
impressed with the rigor of her stepmother's
scruples. There was literally no one of the
14

210 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

other sex whom she appeared to feel at lib-
erty to see at home, and when the child
risked an inquiry about the ladies who one
by one, during her own previous period, had
been made quite loudly welcome, Mrs. Beale
hastened to inform her that one by one they
had, the fiends, been found out after all to
be awful. If she wished to know more about
them she was recommended to approach her
father.

Maisie had, however, at the very moment
of this injunction much livelier curiosities>
for the dream of lectures at an institution
had at last become a reality, thanks to Sir
Claude's now unbounded energy in discover-
ing what could be done. It appeared in this
connection that when you came to look into
things in a spirit of earnestness an immense
deal could be done for very little more than
your fare in the Underground. The institu-
tion — there was a splendid one in a part of
the town but little known to the child — be-
came in the glow of such a spirit a thrilling
place, and the walk to it from the station
through Glower Street — a pronunciation for
which Mrs. Beale once laughed at her little
friend — a pathway literally strewn with
"subjects." Maisie seemed to herself to

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 211

pluck them as she passed, though they thick-
ened in the great gray rooms where the foun-
tain of knowledge, in the form usually of a
high voice that she took at first to be angry,
plashed in the stillness of rows of faces thrust
out like empty jugs. " It must do us good
— it 's all so hideous," Mrs. Beale had imme-
diately declared, manifesting a purity of reso-
lution that made these occasions quite the
most harmonious of all the many on which
the pair had pulled together. Maisie cer-
tainly had never in such an association felt
so uplifted and never above all been so car-
ried off her feet as at the moments of Mrs.
Beale's breathlessly re-entering the house
and fairly shrieking upstairs to know if they
would still be in time for a lecture. Her
stepdaughter, all ready from the earliest
hours, almost leaped over the banister to
respond, and they dashed out together in
quest of learning as hard as they often dashed
back to release Mrs. Beale for other preoccu-
pations. There had been in short no bustle
like it since that last brief flurry when Mrs.
Wix, blowing as if she were grooming her,
" made up " for everything previously lost at
her father's.

These weeks as well were too few, but

212 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

they were flooded with a new emotion, a part
of which indeed came from the possibility
that, through the long telescope of Glower
Street, or perhaps between the pillars of the
institution — which were what Maisie thought
most made it one — they should some day
spy Sir Claude. That was what Mrs. Beale,
under pressure, had said — doubtless a little
impatiently : " Oh, yes, oh, yes ; some day ! "
His joining them was clearly far less of a
matter of course than was to have been gath-
ered from his original profession of desire to
improve in their company his own mind;
and this sharpened our young lady's guess
that since that occasion either something
destructive had happened or something de-
sirable had n't. Mrs. Beale had thrown but a
partial light in telling her how it had turned
out that nobody had been squared. Maisie
wished at any rate that somebody would be
squared. However, though in every ap-
proach to the temple of knowledge she
watched in vain for Sir Claude, there was no
doubt about the action of his loved image as
an incentive and a recompense. When the
institution was most on pillars — or, as Mrs.
Beale put it, on stilts — when the subject was
deepest and the lecture longest and the lis-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 213

teners ugliest, then it was they both felt their
absent protector would be most pleased with
them.

One day, unexpectedly, in the midst of his
absence, Mrs. Beale said to her companion :
"We'll go to-night to the thingumbob at
Earl's Court; " an announcement putting
forth its full lustre when she had made
known that she referred to the great Exhibi-
tion just opened in that quarter, a collection
of extraordinary foreign things in tremen-
dous gardens, with illuminations, bands, ele-
phants, switchbacks and sideshows, as well
as crowds of people among whom they might
possibly see some one they knew. Maisie
flew in the same bound at the neck of her
friend and at the name of Sir Claude, on
which Mrs. Beale confessed that — well, yes,
there was just a chance that he would be able
to meet them. He never of course in his
terrible position knew what might happen
from hour to hour ; but he hoped to be free
and he had given Mrs. Beale the tip. " Bring
her there on the quiet, and I '11 try to turn
up" — this was clear enough on what so
many weeks of privation had made of his
desire to see the child : it even appeared to
represent on his part a yearning as constant

214 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

as her own. That in turn was just puzzling
enough to make Maisie express a bewilder-
ment. She could n't see, if they were so
intensely of the same mind, why the theory
on which she had come back to Mrs. Beale
— the general reunion, the delightful trio,
should have broken down so in fact. Mrs.
Beale, however, only gave her more to think
about in saying that their disappointment
was the result of his having got into his head
a kind of idea.

"What kind of idea?"

" Oh, goodness knows ! " She spoke with
an approach to asperity. " He 's so awfully
delicate."

" Delicate? " — that was ambiguous.

"About what he does, don't you know?"
said Mrs. Beale. She made it clearer.
"Well, about what we do."

Maisie wondered. " You and me? "

" Me and him, silly ! " cried Mrs. Beale with,
this time, a real giggle.

" But you don't do any harm — you
don't," said Maisie, wondering afresh and
intending her emphasis as a resigned allusion
to her parents.

" Of course we don't, you angel — that 's
just the ground / take ! " her companion

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 215

exultantly responded. " He says he does n't
want you mixed up."

" Mixed up with what? "

" That 's exactly what / want to know :
mixed up with what, and how you are any
more mixed — ? " But Mrs. Beale paused
without ending her question. She ended
after an instant in a different way. " All you
can say is it 's his fancy."

The tone of this, in spite of its expressing
a resignation, the fruit of weariness, that dis-
missed the subject, conveyed so vividly how
much such a fancy was not Mrs. Beale's own
that our young lady was led by the mere fact
of contact to arrive at a dim apprehension
of the unuttered and the unknown. The
relation between her step-parents had then
a kind of mysterious residuum : this was the
first time she really had reflected that except
as regards herself it was not a relationship.
To each other it was only what they might
happen to make it, and she gathered that
this, in the event, had been something that
led Sir Claude to keep away from her.
Did n't he fear she would be compromised ?
The perception of such a scruple endeared
him the more, and it flashed over her that
she might simplify everything by showing

216 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

him how little she made of such a danger.
Had n't she lived with her eyes on it from
her third year? It was the condition most
frequently discussed at the Faranges', where
the word was always in the air and where at
the age of five, amid rounds of applause, she
could gabble it off. She knew as well in
short that a person could be compromised as
that a person could be slapped with a hair-
brush or left alone in the dark, and it was
equally familiar to her that each of these or-
deals was in general held to have too little
effect. But the first thing was to make
absolutely sure of Mrs. Beale. This was
done by saying to her thoughtfully: "Well,
if you don't mind — and you really don't, do
you ? "

Mrs. Beale, with a dawn of amusement,
considered. "Mixing you up? Not a bit.
For what does it mean? "

"Whatever it means, I don't in the least
mind being mixed. Therefore if you don't
and I don't," Maisie continued, " don't you
think that when I see him this evening I had
better just tell him we don't and ask him
why in the world he should?"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 217

XVIII

THE child, however, was not destined to en-
joy much of Sir Claude at the " thingum-
bob," which took for them a very different
turn indeed. On the spot Mrs. Beale, with
hilarity, had urged her to the course pro-
posed ; but later, at the Exhibition, she with-
drew this allowance, mentioning, as a result
of second thoughts, that when a man was so
sensitive such a communication might only
make him worse. It would have been hard
indeed for Sir Claude to be "worse," Maisie
felt, as, in the gardens and the crowd, when
the first dazzle had dropped, she looked for
him in vain up and down. They had all
their time, the couple, for frugal, wistful wan-
dering : they had partaken together, at home,
of the light, vague meal — Maisie's name for
it was a "jam-supper" — to which they were
reduced when Mr. Farange sought his pleas-
ure abroad. It was abroad now, entirely,
that Mr. Farange cultivated this philosophy,
and it was the actual impression of his
daughter, derived from his wife, that he had
three days before joined a friend's yacht at
Cowes.

218 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

The place was full of sideshows, to which
Mrs. Beale could introduce the little girl only,
alas ! by revealing to her so attractive, so
enthralling a name: the sideshows, each
time, were sixpence apiece, and the fond al-
legiance enjoyed by the elder of our pair had
been established from the earliest time in
spite of a paucity of sixpences. Small coin
dropped from her as half-heartedly as answers
from bad children to lessons that had not
been looked at. Maisie passed more slowly
the great painted posters, pressing, with a
linked arm, closer to her friend's pocket,
where she hoped for the sensible stir of a
shilling. But the upshot of this was but to
deepen her yearning: if Sir Claude would
only at last come the shillings would begin
to flow. The companions paused, for want
of one, before the Flowers of the Forest, a
large presentment of bright brown ladies —
they were brown all over — in a medium sug-
gestive of tropical luxuriance, and there
Maisie dolorously expressed her belief that
he would never come at all. Mrs. Beale
hereupon, though discernibly disappointed,
reminded her that he had not been promised
as a certainty — a remark that caused the
child to gaze at the Flowers of the Forest

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 219

through a blur in which they became more
magnificent, yet oddly more confused, and
by which moreover confusion was imparted
to the aspect of a gentleman who at that mo-
ment, in the company of a lady, came out of
the brilliant booth. The lady was so brown
that Maisie at first took her for one of the
Flowers; but during the few seconds that
this required — a few seconds in which she
had also desolately given up Sir Claude —
she heard Mrs. Beale's voice, behind her,
gather both wonder and pain into a single
sharp little cry.

" Of all the wickedness — Beale / "

He had already, without distinguishing
them in the mass of strollers, turned another
way — it seemed at the brown lady's sug-
gestion. Her course was marked, over heads
and shoulders, by an upright scarlet plume,
as to the ownership of which Maisie was in-
stantly eager. " Who is she ? — who is she? "

But Mrs. Beale, for a moment, only looked
after them. " The liar — the liar ! "

Maisie considered. " Because he's not —
where one thought ! " That was also, a month
ago in Kensington Gardens, where her
mother had not been. " Perhaps he has
come back," she insinuated.

220 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" He never went — the hound ! "

That, according to Sir Claude, had been
also what her mother had not done, and
Maisie could only have a sense of something
that in a maturer mind would be called the
way history repeats itself. " Who is she ? "
she asked again.

Mrs. Beale, fixed to the spot, seemed lost
in the vision of an opportunity missed. " If
he had only seen me ! " — it came from be-
tween her teeth. " She 's a bran-new one.
But he must have been with her since Tues-
day."

Maisie took it in. " She 's almost black,"
she then observed.

" They 're always hideous," said Mrs.
Beale.

This was a remark on which the child had
again to reflect. " Oh, not his wives ! " she
remonstrantly exclaimed. The words at an-
other moment would probably have set her
friend off, but Mrs. Beale was now too intent
in seeing what became of the others. " Did
you ever in your life see such a feather?"
Maisie presently continued.

This decoration appeared to have paused
at some distance, and in spite of intervening
groups they could both look at it. " Oh,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 221

that 's the way they dress — the vulgarest of
the vulgar ! "

"They're coming back — they'll see us! "
Maisie the next moment announced: and
while her companion answered that this was
exactly what she wanted, and the child re-
turned " Here they are — here they are ! "
the unconscious objects of so much attention,
with a change of mind about their direction,
quickly retraced their steps and precipitated
themselves upon their critics. Their uncon-
sciousness gave Mrs. Beale time to leap,
under her breath, to a recognition which
Maisie caught.

" It must be Mrs. Cuddon ! "

Maisie looked at Mrs. Cuddon hard — her
lips even echoed the name. What followed
was extraordinarily rapid — a minute of live-
lier battle than had ever yet, in so short a
span at least, been waged round our heroine.
The muffled shock — lest people should
notice — was so violent that it was only for
her later thought the steps fell into their
order, the steps through which, in a bewilder-
ment not so much of sound as of silence, she
had come to find herself, too soon for com-
prehension and too strangely for fear, at the
door of the Exhibition with her father. He

222 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

thrust her into a hansom and got in after her,
and then it was — as she drove along with
him — that she recovered a little what had
happened. Face to face with them in the
gardens he had seen them, and there had
been a moment of checked concussion during
which, in a glare of black eyes and a toss of
red plumage, Mrs. Cuddon had recognized
them, ejaculated and vanished. There had
been another moment at which she became
aware of Sir Claude, also poised there in sur-
prise, but out of her father's view, as if he
had been warned off at the very moment of
reaching them. It fell into its place with all
the rest that she had heard Mrs. Beale say to
her father, but whether low or loud was now
lost to her, something about his having this
time a new one; to which he had growled
something indistinct, but apparently in the
tone and of the sort that the child, from her
earliest years, had associated with hearing
somebody retort to somebody that some-
body was " another." " Oh, I stick to the
old ! " Mrs. Beale had exclaimed at this, and
her accent, even as the cab got away, was
still in the air, for Maisie's companion had
spoken no other word from the moment of
whisking her off — none at least save the in-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 223

distinguishable address which, over the top
of the hansom and poised on the step, he
had given the driver. Reconstructing these
things later, Maisie believed that she at this
point would have put a question to him had
not the silence into which he charmed her
or scared her — she could scarce know which
— come from his suddenly making her feel
his arm about her, feel, as he drew her close,
that he was agitated in a way he had never
yet shown her. It seemed to her that he
trembled, trembled too much to speak, and
this had the effect of making her, with an
emotion which, though it had begun to throb
in an instant, was by no means all dread, con-
form to his portentous hush. The act of
possession that his pressure in a manner ad-
vertised came back to her after the longest
of the long intermissions that had ever let
anything come back. They drove and drove,
and he kept her close ; she stared straight
before her, holding her breath, watching one
dark street succeed another, and strangely
conscious that what it all meant was some-
how that papa was less to be left out of
everything than she had supposed. It took
her but a minute to surrender to this dis-
covery, which, in the form of his present em-

224 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

brace, suggested a fresh kind of importance
in him and with that a confused confidence.
She neither knew exactly what he had done
nor what he was doing; she could only be
rather impressed and a little proud, vibrate
with the sense that he had jumped up to do
something and that she had as quickly be-
come a part of it. It was a part of it too
that here they were at a house that seemed
not large, but in the fresh white front of
which the street-lamp showed a smartness of
flower-boxes. The child had been in thous-
ands of stories — all Mrs. Wix's and her
own, to say nothing of the richest romances
of French Elise — but she had never been in
such a story as this. By the time he had
helped her out of the cab, which drove away,
and she heard in the door of the house the
prompt little click of his key, the Arabian
Nights had quite closed round her.

From this minute they were in everything,
particularly in such an instant " open sesame "
and in the departure of a cab, a rattling void
filled with relinquished step-parents ; they
were, with the vividness, the almost blinding
whiteness of the light that sprang responsive
to papa's quick touch of a little brass knob
on the wall, in a place that, at the top of a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 225

short soft staircase, struck her as the most
beautiful she had ever seen in her life. The
next thing she perceived it to be was the
drawing-room of a lady — oh, of a lady, she
could see in a moment, and not of a gentle-
man not even of one like papa himself or
even like Sir Claude — whose things were as
much prettier than mamma's as it had always
had to be confessed mamma's were prettier
than Mrs. Beale's. In the middle of the
small bright room and the presence of more
curtains and cushions, more pictures and
mirrors, more palm-trees drooping over bro-
caded and gilded nooks, more little silver
boxes scattered over little crooked tables and
little oval miniatures hooked upon velvet
screens than Mrs. Beale and her ladyship to-
gether could in an unnatural alliance have
dreamed of mustering, the child became
aware, with a swift possibility of compassion,
of something that was strangely like a rele-
gation to obscurity of each of those women
of taste. It was a stranger operation still that
her father should on the spot be presented to
her as quite advantageously and even grandly
at home in the dazzling scene and himself by
so much the more separated from scenes in-
ferior to it. She spent with him in it, while
15

226 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

explanations continued to hang fire, twenty
minutes that, in their sudden drop of danger,
affected her, though there were neither buns
nor ginger-beer, like an extemporized costly
treat.

"Is she very rich?" He had begun to
strike her as almost embarrassed, so shy that
he might have found himself with a young
lady with whom he had little in common.
She was literally moved by this apprehension
to offer him some tactful relief.

Beale Farange stood and smiled at his
young lady, his back to the fanciful fireplace,
his light overcoat — the very lightest in Lon-
don— wide open and his wonderful lustrous
beard completely concealing the expanse of
his shirt-front. It pleased her more than
ever to think that papa was handsome and,
though as high aloft as mamma and almost,
in his specially florid evening dress, as splen-
did, of a beauty somewhat less belligerent,
less terrible. "The Countess? Why do you
ask me that?"

Maisie's eyes opened wider. " Is she a
Countess?"

There was an unaccustomed geniality in
his enjoyment of her wonder. " Oh, yes, my
dear — but it is n't an English title."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 227

Maisie's manner appreciated this. " Is it a
French one? "

" No, nor French either. It's American."

Maisie conversed agreeably. "Ah, then,
of course she is rich." She took in such a
combination of nationality and rank. " I
never saw anything so lovely."

"Did you have a sight of her?" Beale
asked.

"At the Exhibition?" Maisie smiled.
" She was gone too quick."

Her father laughed. " She did slope ! "
She was for a moment afraid he would
say something about Mrs. Beale and Sir
Claude : his unexpected gentleness was too
mystifying. All he said was, the next
minute : " She has a horror of vulgar
scenes."

This was something Maisie need n't take
up; she could still continue bland. "But
where do you suppose she went? "

" Oh, I thought she 'd have taken a cab
and have been here by this time. But she '11
turn up all right."

" I 'm sure I hope she will," Maisie said.
She spoke with an earnestness begotten of
the impression of all the beauty around her,
to which, in person, the Countess might

228 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

make further contributions. "We came
awfully fast," she added.

Her father again laughed loud. "Yes,
my dear — I made you step out ! " Beale
hesitated ; then he added : " I want her to
see you." Maisie, at this, rejoiced in the at-
tention that, for their evening out, Mrs. Beale,
even to the extent of personally " doing up "
her old hat, had given her appearance.
Meanwhile her father went on : " You '11 like
her awfully."

" Oh, I 'm sure I shall ! " -— after which,
either from the effect of having said so much
or from that of a sudden glimpse of the im-
possibility of saying more, she felt a com-
plication and sought refuge in a minor
branch of the subject. " I thought she was
Mrs. Cuddon."

Beale's gaiety rather increased than dimin-
ished. " You mean my wife did ? My dear
child, my wife 's a damned fool." He had
the oddest air of speaking of his wife as of a
person whom she might scarcely have known ;
so that the refuge of her scruple did n't prove
particularly happy. Beale, on the other
hand, appeared after an instant himself to
feel a scruple. " What I mean is, to speak
seriously, that she does n't really know any-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 229

thing about anything." He paused, follow-
ing the child's charmed eyes and tentative
step or two as they brought her nearer to the
pretty things on one of the tables. " She
thinks she has good things, don't you know ? "
He quite jeered at Mrs. Beale's delusion.

Maisie felt she must confess that it was
one : everything she had missed at the side-
shows was made up to her by the Countess's
luxuries. " Yes," she considered — " she does
think that."

There was again a dryness in the way
Beale replied that it didn't matter what she
thought ; but there was an increasing sweet-
ness for his daughter in being with him so
long without his doing anything worse. The
whole hour, of course, was to remain with
her for days and weeks, ineffaceably illu-
mined and confirmed ; by the end of which
she was able to read into it a hundred things
that were at the moment mere miraculous
pleasantness. What they then and there
came to was simply that her companion was
still excited, yet wished not to show it, and
that just in proportion as he succeeded in
this attempt he was able to encourage her to
regard him as kind. He moved about the
room after a little ; showed her things, spoke

230 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

to her as a person of taste, told her the name,
which she remembered, of the famous French
lady represented in one of the miniatures,
and remarked, as if he had caught her wistful
over a trinket or a trailing stuff, that he made
no doubt the Countess, on coming in, would
give her something jolly. He spied a pink
satin box with a looking-glass let into the
cover, which he raised, with a quick, facetious
flourish, to offer her the privilege of six rows
deep of chocolate bonbons, cutting out thereby
Sir Claude, who had never gone beyond two
rows. "I can do what I like with these,"
he said, "for I don't mind telling you I gave
'em to her myself." The Countess had evi-
dently appreciated the gift ; there were nu-
merous gaps, a ravage now quite unchecked, in
the array. Even while they waited together
Maisie had her sense, which was the mark
of what their separation had become, of her
having grown, for him, since the last time
he had, as it were, noticed her, and by in-
crease of years and of inches if by nothing
else, much more of a little person to reckon
with. Yes, that was a part of the positive
awkwardness that he carried off by being
almost foolishly tender. There was a passage
during which, on a yellow silk sofa, under

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 231

one of the palms, he had her on his knee,
stroking her hair, playfully holding her off
while he showed his shining fangs and let
her, with a vague, affectionate, helpless,
pointless "Dear old girl, dear little daugh-
ter!" inhale the fragrance of his cherished
beard. She must have been sorry for him,
she afterwards knew ; so well could she pri-
vately follow his difficulty in being specific
to her about anything. She had such pos-
sibilities of vibration, of response, that it
needed nothing more than this to make up
to her in fact for omissions. The tears came
into her eyes again as they had come when,
in the Park that day, the Captain told her so
excitingly that her mother was good. What
was this but exciting too, this still directer
goodness of her father and this unexampled
shining solitude with him, out of which
everything had dropped but that he was papa
and that he was magnificent? It didn't
spoil it that she finally felt he must have, as
he became restless, some purpose he did n't
quite see his way to bring out ; for in the
freshness of their recovered fellowship she
would have lent herself gleefully to his sug-
gesting, or even to his pretending, that their
relations were easy and graceful. There was

232 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

something in him that seemed — and quite
touchingly — -to ask her to help him to pre-
tend, pretend he knew enough about her life
and her education, her means of subsistence
and her view of himself, to give the ques-
tions he couldn't put her a natural domestic
tone. She would have pretended with ecstasy
if he could only have given her the cue. She
waited for it while, between his big teeth,
he breathed the sighs she did n't know to be
stupid; and as if he had drawn — rather red
with the confusion of it — the pledge of her
preparation from her tears, he floundered
about, wondering what the devil he could lay
hold of.

XIX

WHEN he had lighted a cigarette and begun
to smoke in her face it was as if he had
struck with the match the note of some queer,
clumsy ferment of old professions, old scan-
dals, old duties, a dim perception of what he
possessed in her and what, if everything had
only, damn it, been totally different, she
might still be able to give him. What she
was able to give him, however, as his blink-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 233

ing eyes seemed to make out through the
smoke, would be simply what he should be
able to get from her. To give something, to
give here on the spot, was all her own desire.
Among the old things that came back was
her little instinct of keeping the peace; it
made her wonder more sharply what particu-
lar thing she could do or not do, what partic-
ular word she could speak or not speak, what
particular line she could take or not take that
might, for every one, even for the Countess,
give a better turn to the crisis. She was
ready, in this interest, for an immense sur-
render, a surrender of everything but Sir
Claude, of everything but Mrs. Beale. The
immensity didn't include them; but if he
had an idea at the back of his head she had
also one in a recess as deep, and for a time,
while they sat together, there was an extraor-
dinary mute passage between her vision of
this vision of his, his vision of her vision and
her vision of his vision of her vision. What
there was no effective record of indeed was
the small strange pathos on the child's part
of an innocence so saturated with knowledge
and so directed to diplomacy. What, fur-
ther, Beale finally laid hold of while he
masked again with his fine presence half the

234 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

flounces of the fireplace was : " Do you know,
my dear, I shall soon be off to America? "

It struck his daughter both as a short cut
and as the way he would n't have said it to
his wife. But his wife figured with a bright
superficial assurance in her response. " Do
you mean with Mrs. Beale ? "

Her father looked at her hard. "Don't
be a little ass!"

Her silence appeared to represent a con-
centrated effort not to be. " Then with the
Countess?"

"With her or without her, my dear — that
concerns only your poor daddy. She has big
interests over there, and she wants me to
take a look at them."

Maisie threw herself into them. "Will
that take very long ? "

" Yes ; they 're in such a muddle — it may
take months. Now what I want to hear, you
know, is whether you would like to come
along."

Planted once more before him in the
middle of the room, she felt herself turning
white. " I ? " she gasped, yet feeling as
soon as she had spoken that such a note of
dismay was not altogether pretty. She felt
it still more while her father replied, with a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 235

shake of his legs, a toss of his cigarette-ash
and a fidgety look — he was forever taking
one — all the length of his waistcoat and
trousers, that she need n't be quite so dis-
gusted. It helped her in a few seconds to
appear more as he would like her that she
saw, in the lovely light of the Countess's
splendor, exactly, however she appeared, the
right answer to make. " Dear papa, I '11 go
with you anywhere."

He turned his back to her and stood with
his nose at the glass of the chimneypiece while
he brushed specks of ash out of his beard.
Then he abruptly said : " Do you know any-
thing about your brute of a mother? "

It was just of her brute of a mother that
the manner of the question in a remarkable
degree reminded her: it had the free flight
of one of Ida's fine bridgings of space. With
the sense of this was kindled for Maisie at
the same time an inspiration. " Oh, yes, I
know everything ! " — and she became so
radiant that her father, seeing it in the
mirror, turned back to her and presently, on
the sofa, had her on his knee again and was
again particularly stirring. Maisie' s inspi-
ration was to the effect that the more she
should be able to say about mamma the less

236 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

she would be called upon to speak of her step-
parents. She kept hoping that the Countess
would come in before her power to protect
them was exhausted; and it was now, in
closer quarters with her companion, that the
idea at the back of her head shifted its place
to her lips. She told him she had met her
mother in the park with a gentleman who,
while Sir Claude had strolled with her lady-
ship, had been kind and had sat and talked
to her; narrating the scene with a remem-
brance of her pledge of secrecy to the Captain
quite brushed away by the joy of seeing
Beale listen without profane interposition.
It was almost an amazement, but indeed all
a joy, thus to be able to guess that papa was
at last quite tired of his anger — of his anger,
at any rate, about mamma. He was only
bored with her now. That made it, however,
the more imperative that his spent dis-
pleasure should n't be blown out again. It
charmed the child to see how much she could
interest him, and the charm remained even
when, after asking her a dozen questions, he
observed, musingly and a little obscurely,
" Yes — damned if she won't ! " For in this
too there was a detachment, a wise weari-
ness that made her feel safe. She had had to

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 237

mention Sir Claude, though she mentioned
him as little as possible and Beale only ap-
peared to look quite over his head. It pieced
itself together for her that this was the mild-
ness of general indifference; a source of
profit so great for herself personally that if
the Countess was the author of it she was
prepared literally to hug the Countess. She
betrayed that eagerness by a restless question
about her; to which her father replied : "Oh,
she has a head on her shoulders — I '11 back
her to get out of anything ! " He looked at
Maisie quite as if he would trace the connec-
tion between her inquiry and the impatience
of her gratitude. "Do you mean to say," he
presently went on, "that you 'd really come
with me ? "

She felt as if he were now looking at her
very hard indeed, and also as if she had
grown ever so much older. " I '11 do anything
in the world you ask me, papa."

He gave again, with a laugh and with his
legs apart, his proprietary glance at his waist-
coat and trousers. " That 's a way, my dear,
of saying 'No, thank you!' You know you
don't want to go the least little mite. You
can't humbug me ! " Mr. Farange laid down.
" I don't want to bully you — I never bullied

238 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

you in my life; but I make you the offer,
and it 's to take or to leave. Your mother
will never again have any more to do with
you than if you were a kitchen-maid she had
turned out for going wrong. Therefore, of
course, I 'm your natural protector, and
you 've a right to get everything out of me
you can. Now 's your chance, you know —
you '11 be a great fool if you don't. You
can't say I don't put it before you — you
can't say I ain't kind to you or that I don't
play fair. Mind you never say that, you
know — it would bring me down on you. I
know what 's proper — I '11 take you again,
just as I have taken you again and again and
again. And I 'm much obliged to you for
making up such a face. "

She was conscious enough that her face
indeed couldn't please him if it showed any
sign — just as she hoped it did n't — of her
sharp impression of what he now really
wanted to do. Was n't he trying to turn the
tables on her, hocuspocus her somehow into
admitting that what would really suit her
little book would be, after doing so much for
good manners, to leave her wholly at liberty
to arrange for herself ? She began to be ner-
vous again ; it rolled over her that this was

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 239

their parting, their parting forever, and that
he had brought her there for so many caresses
only because it was important such an occa-
sion should look better for him than any
other. For her to spoil it by the note of dis-
cord would certainly give him ground for
complaint; and the child was momentarily
bewildered between her alternatives of agree-
ing with him about her wanting to get rid of
him and displeasing him by pretending to
stick to him. So she found for the moment
no solution but to murmur very helplessly:
"Oh, papa — oh, papa!"

"I know what you're up to — don't tell
me ! " After which he came straight over
and, in the most inconsequent way in the
world, clasped her in his arms a moment and
rubbed his beard against her cheek. Then
she understood as well as if he had spoken
it that what he wanted, hang it, was that
she should let him off with all the honours
— with all the appearance of virtue and sac-
rifice on his side. It was exactly as if he
had broken out to her: "I say, you little
donkey, help me to be irreproachable, to be
noble, and yet to have none of the beastly
bore of it. There 's only impropriety enough
for one of us, so you must take it all. Repu-

24o WHAT MAISIE KNEW

diate your dear old daddy — in the face, mind
you, of his tender supplications. He can't
be rough with you — it is n't in his nature;
therefore you will have successfully chucked
him because he was too generous to be as
firm with you, poor man, as was, after all,
his duty." This was what he communicated
in a series of tremendous pats on the back;
that portion of her person had never been so
thumped since Moddle thumped her when
she choked. After a moment he gave her the
further impression of having become sure
enough of her to be able very gracefully to
say out: "You know your mother loathes
you, loathes you simply. And I 've been
thinking over your man — the fellow you told
me about."

"Well," Maisie replied with competence,
"I 'm sure of him."

Her father was vague an instant. " Do
you mean sure of his liking you ? "

" Oh no, of his liking her ! "

Beale had a return of gaiety. "There's
no accounting for tastes ! It 's what they all
say, you know. "

" I don't care — I'm sure of him ! " Maisie
repeated.

"Sure, you mean, that she '11 bolt?"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 241

Maisie knew all about bolting, but, decid-
edly, she was older, and there was something
in her that could wince at the way her father
made the word boom out. It prompted her
to amend his allusion; which she did by re-
turning : " I don't know what she ' 11 do. But
she '11 be happy."

"Let us hope so," said Beale with bright,
unusual mildness. " The more happy she is,
at any rate, the less she'll want you about.
That's why I press you," he agreeably pur-
sued, "to consider this handsome offer — I
mean seriously, you know — of your sole sur-
viving parent." Their eyes, at this, met
again in a long and extraordinary communion
which terminated in his ejaculating: "Ah,
you little scoundrel ! " She took it from him
in the manner that it seemed to her he would
prefer and with a success that encouraged
him to go on : " You are a deep little devil ! "
Her silence, ticking like a watch, acknowl-
edged even this ; in confirmation of which he
finally brought out : " You 've settled it with
the other pair ! "

" Well, what if I have ? " — she sounded to
herself most bold.

Her father, quite as in the old days, guf-
fawed. "Why, don't you know they 're awful?"
16

242 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

She grew bolder still. "I don't care —
not a bit ! "

" But they 're probably the worst people in
the world and the very greatest criminals,"
Beale pleasantly urged. " I 'm not the man,
my dear, not to let you know it. "

"Well, it doesn't prevent them from lov-
ing me. They love me tremendously."
Maisie turned crimson to hear herself.

Her father hesitated: almost any one —
let alone a daughter — would have seen how
conscientious he wanted to be. " I dare say.
But do you know why?" She braved his
eyes, and he added: "You're a jolly good
pretext."

" For what ? " Maisie asked.

" Why, for their game. I need n't tell you
what that is. "

The child reflected. "Well, then, that's
all the more reason."

" Reason for what, pray? "

"For their being kind to me."

" And for your keeping in with them ? "
Beale roared again ; it was as if his spirits
rose and rose. " Do you realize, I should
like to know, that in saying that you 're a
monster ? "

Maisie turned it over. "A monster?"

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 243

"They've made one of you. Upon my
honour it 's quite awful. It shows the sort
of people they are. Don't you understand,"
Beale pursued, " that when they 've made you
as horrid as they can — as horrid as them-
selves — they '11 just simply chuck you? "

Maisie, at this, had a flicker of passion.
" They won't chuck me ! "

"Excuse me," her father courteously in-
sisted. " It 's my duty to put it before you.
I should n't forgive myself if I did n't point
out to you that they '11 cease to require you. "
He spoke as if with an appeal to her intelli-
gence that she must be ashamed not ade-
quately to meet, and this gave a still higher
grace to his superior delicacy.

It had after an instant the illuminating
effect he intended. "Cease to require me
because they won't care — ?" She paused
with that sketch of her idea.

" Of course Sir Claude won't care if his
wife bolts. That 's his game — it will suit
him down to the ground."

This was a proposition Maisie could per-
fectly embrace, but it still left a loophole for
triumph. She considered a little. " You
mean if mamma does n't come back ever at
all ? " The composure with which her face

244 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

was presented to that prospect would have
shown a spectator the long road she had trav-
elled. "Well, but that won't put Mrs.
Beale — "

"In the same comfortable position — ?"
Beale took her up with relish ; he had sprung
to his feet again, shaking his legs and look-
ing at his shoes. " Right you are, darling !
Something more will be wanted for Mrs.
Beale. " He hesitated ; then he added : " But
she may not have long to wait for it. "

Maisie also for a minute looked at his
shoes, though they were not the pair she most
admired, the laced yellow "uppers" and
patent-leather complement. At last, with a
question, she raised her eyes. " Are you not
coming back? "

Once more he hung fire; after which he
gave a small laugh that, in the oddest way in
the world, reminded her of the unique sounds
she had heard emitted by Mrs. Wix. "It
may strike you as extraordinary that I should
make you such an admission; and in point
of fact you 're not to understand that I do.
But we '11 put it that way to help your de-
cision. The point is that that 's the way my
wife will presently be sure to put it. You '11
hear her shrieking that she 's deserted, so

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 245

that she may pile up her wrongs and things.
She '11 be as free as she likes then — as free,
you see, as your mother's ass of a husband.
They won't have anything more to consider,
and they '11 just put you into the street. Do
I understand," Beale inquired, "that, in the
face of what I press upon you, you still pre-
fer to take the risk of that?" It was the
most wonderful appeal any gentleman had
ever addressed to his daughter, and it had
placed Maisie in the middle of the room
again, while her father moved slowly about
her with his hands in his pockets and some-
thing in his step that seemed, more than any-
thing else he had done, to show the habit of
the place. She turned her fevered little
eyes over his friend's brightnesses, as if, on
her own side, to press for some help in a
quandary unexampled. As if, also, the
pressure reached him, he after an instant
stopped short, completing the prodigy of his
attitude and the grace of his loyalty by a
supreme formulation of the general induce-
ment. " You have an eye, love ! Yes —
there 's money. No end of money."

This affected her for a moment like some
great flashing dazzle in one of the panto-
mimes to which Sir Claude had taken her :

246 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

she saw nothing in it but what it directly
conveyed. "And shall I never, never see
you again — ? "

" If I do go to America ? " Beale brought
it out like a man. "Never, never, never!"

Hereupon, with the utmost absurdity, she
broke down; everything gave way, every-
thing but the horror of hearing herself defi-
nitely utter such an ugliness as the accept-
ance of that. So she only stiffened herself
and said: "Then I can't give you up."

She held him some seconds looking at her,
showing her a strained grimace, a perfect
parade of all his teeth, in which it seemed
to her she could read the disgust he did n't
quite like to express at this departure from
the pliability she had practically promised.
But before she could attenuate in any way
the crudity of her collapse he gave an impa-
tient jerk which took him to the window.
She heard a vehicle stop ; Beale looked out ;
then he freshly faced her. He still said
nothing, but she knew the Countess had come
back. There was a silence again between
them, but with a different shade of embar-
rassment from that of their united arrival;
and it was still without speaking that,
abruptly repeating one of the fine hugs of

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 247

which he had already been so liberal, he
whisked her back to the yellow sofa just be-
fore the door of the room was thrown open.
It was thus in renewed and intimate union
with him that she was presented to a person
whom she instantly recognized as the brown
lady.

The brown lady looked almost as aston-
ished, though not quite as alarmed, as when,
at the Exhibition, she had gasped in the face
of Mrs. Beale. Maisie, in truth, almost
gasped in her own ; this was with the fuller
perception that she was brown indeed. She
literally struck the child more as an animal
than as a "real " lady: she might have been
a clever frizzled poodle in a frill or a dread-
ful human monkey in a spangled petticoat.
She had a nose that was far too big and eyes
that were far too small and a moustache that
was — well, not so happy a feature as Sir
Claude's. Beale jumped up to her; while,
to the child's astonishment, though as if in
a quick intensity of thought, the Countess
advanced as gaily as if, for many a day, noth-
ing awkward had happened for any one.
Maisie, in spite of a large acquaintance with
the phenomenon, had never seen it so promptly
established that nothing awkward was to be

248 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

mentioned. The next minute the Countess
had kissed her and exclaimed to Beale with
bright, tender reproach : " Why, you never
told me half! My dear child," she cried,
" it was awfully nice of you to come ! "

" But she has n't come — she won t come ! "
Beale exclaimed. " I 've put it to her how
much you 'd like it, but she declines to have
anything to do with us."

The Countess stood smiling, and after an
instant that was mainly taken up with the
shock of her weird aspect Maisie felt herself
reminded of another smile, which was not
ugly, though also interested — the kind light
thrown, that day in the Park, from the clean,
fair face of the Captain. Papa's Captain —
yes — was the Countess; but she wasn't
nearly so nice as the other: it all came back,
doubtless, to Maisie' s minor appreciation of
ladies. "Should n't you like me," said this
one endearingly, " to take you to Spa ? "

"To Spa?" The child repeated the name
to gain time, not to show how the Countess
brought back to her a dim remembrance of a
strange woman with a horrid face, who once,
years before, in an omnibus, bending to her
from an opposite seat, had suddenly produced
an orange and murmured : " Little dearie,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 249

won't you have it? " She had felt then, for
some reason, a small, silly terror, though
afterwards conscious that her interlocutress,
unfortunately hideous, had particularly meant
to be kind. This was also what the Coun-
tess meant; yet the few words she had
uttered and the smile with which she had
uttered them immediately cleared everything
up. Oh, no, she wanted to go nowhere with
her, for her presence had already, in a few
seconds, dissipated the happy impression of
the room and put an end to the pride momen-
tarily suggested by Beale's association with
so much taste. There was no taste in his
association with the short, fat, wheedling,
whiskered person who had approached her
and in whom she had to recognize the only
figure wholly without attraction that had be-
come a party to an intimate connection
formed in her immediate circle. She was
abashed meanwhile, however, at having ap-
peared to weigh the place to which she had
been invited; and she added as quickly as
possible: "It isn't to America, then — ?"
The Countess, at this, looked sharply at
Beale, and Beale, airily enough, asked what
the deuce it mattered when she had already
given him to understand that she wanted to

250 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

have nothing to do with them. There fol-
lowed between her companions a passage of
which the sense was drowned for her in the
deepening inward hum of her mere desire to
get off; though she was able to guess later
on that her father must have put it to his
friend that it was no use talking, that she
was an obstinate little pig and that, besides,
she was really old enough to choose for her-
self. It glimmered back to her then as well
that the Countess had cast derision on the
question of America and had offered her
alternatives to Spa in the shape of any place
she should like to go in all the rest of the
world. It glimmered back to her indeed that
she must have failed quite dreadfully to seem
responsive and polite, inasmuch as, before
she knew it, she had visibly given the im-
pression that if they did n't allow her to go
home she should cry. Oh, if there had ever
been a thing to cry about, it was being found
in that punishable little attitude toward the
handsomest offers one had ever received !
The great pain of the thing was that she
could see the Countess liked her enough to
wish to be liked in return ; and it was from the
idea of a return she sought to flee — it was
the idea of a return that, after a confusion of

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 251

loud words had arisen between the others,
brought to her lips with the tremor preced-
ing disaster: "Can't I, please, be sent home
in a cab ? " Yes, the Countess wanted her
and the Countess was wounded and chilled,
and she could n't help it, and it was all the
more dreadful because it only made the Coun-
tess more seductive and more impossible.
The only thing that sustained either of them
perhaps till the cab came — Maisie presently
saw it would come — was its being in the
air somehow that Beale had done what he
wanted. He went out to look for a convey-
ance ; the servants, he said, had gone to bed,
but she should n't be kept beyond her time.
The Countess left the room with him and
alone in possession of it Maisie hoped she
would n't come back. It was all the effect
of her face — the child simply couldn't look
at it and meet its expression half-way. All
in a moment too that queer expression had
leaped into the lovely things — all in a
moment she had had to accept her father as
liking some one whom, she was sure, neither
her mother, nor Mrs. Beale, nor Mrs. Wix,
nor Sir Claude, nor the Captain, nor even
Mr. Perriam nor Lord Eric, could possibly
have liked. Three minutes later, down-

252 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

stairs, with the cab at the door, it was per-
haps as a final confession of not having much
to boast of that, on taking leave of her, he
managed to press her to his bosom without
her seeing his face. For herself, she was so
eager to go that their parting reminded her
of nothing — not even of a single one of all
the "nevers" that, above, as the penalty of
not cleaving to him, he had attached to the
question of their meeting again. There was
something in the Countess that falsified
everything, even the great interests in
America, and yet more the first flush of that
superiority to Mrs. Beale and to mamma
which had been expressed in silver boxes.
These were still there, but perhaps there
were no great interests in America. Mamma
had known an American who was not a bit
like this one. She was not, however, of
noble rank; her name was only Mrs. Tucker.
Maisie's detachment would, all the same,
have been more complete if she had not sud-
denly had to exclaim : " Oh, dear — I have n't
any money ! "

Her father's teeth, at this, were such a pic-
ture of appetite without action as to be a
match for any plea of poverty. " Make your
stepmother pay."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 253

" Stepmothers don't pay ! " cried the Coun-
tess. " No stepmother ever paid in her life ! "
The next moment they were in the street
together, and the next the child was in the
cab, with the Countess on the pavement, but
close to her, quickly taking money from a
purse whisked out of a pocket. Her father
had vanished, and there was even yet noth-
ing in that to reawaken the pang of loss.
" Here 's money," said the brown lady : "go ! "
The sound was commanding; the cab rattled
off; Maisie sat there with her hand full of
coin. All that for a cab ? — as they passed a
street-lamp she bent to see how much.
What she saw was a cluster of sovereigns.
There must, then, have been great interests
in America. It was still, at any rate, the
Arabian Nights.

XX

THE money was far too much even for a
fee in a fairy-tale, and in the absence of
Mrs. Beale, who, though the hour was now
late, had not yet returned to the Regent's
Park, Susan Ash, in the hall, as loud as
Maisie was low and as bold as she was bland,

254 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

produced, on the exhibition offered under
the dim vigil of the lamp that made the
place a contrast to the child's recent scene
of light, the half-crown that an unsophisti-
cated cabman could pronounce to be the
least he would take. It was apparently long
before Mrs. Beale would arrive, and in the
interval Maisie had been induced by the
prompt Susan not only to go to bed like a
darling dear, but, in still richer expression
of that character, to devote to the repay-
ment of obligations general as well as partic-
ular one of the sovereigns in the fanciful
figure that, on a dressing-table upstairs, was
naturally not less dazzling to a lone orphan
of a housemaid than to the subject of the
manoeuvres of a quartette. This subject went
to sleep with her property under her pillow;
but the explanations that on the morrow
were inevitably more complete with Mrs.
Beale than they had been with her humble
friend found a climax in a surrender also
more becomingly free. There were expla-
nations indeed that Mrs. Beale had to give
as well as to ask, and the most striking of
these was to the effect that it was dreadful
for a little girl to take money from a woman
who was simply the vilest of their sex. The

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 255

sovereigns were examined with some atten-
tion, the result of which, however, was to
make Mrs. Beale desire to know what, if one
really went into the matter, they could be
called but the wages of sin. Her companion
went into it merely to the point of inquiring
what then they were to do with them ; on
which Mrs. Beale, who had by that time put
them into her pocket, replied with dignity
and with her hand on the place: "We 're to
send them back on the spot ! " Susan, the
child soon afterwards learnt, had been invited
to contribute to this act of restitution her
one appropriated coin; but a closer clutch
of the treasure showed in her private assur-
ance to Maisie that there was a limit to the
way she could be "done." Maisie had been
open with Mrs. Beale about the whole of
last night's transaction; but she now found
herself, on the part of their indignant infe-
rior, a recipient of remarks that she must feel
to be scaring secrets. One of these bore
upon the extraordinary hour — it was three
in the morning, if she really wanted to know
— at which Mrs. Beale had re-entered the
house; another, in accents as to which
Maisie's criticism was still intensely tacit,
characterized that lady's appeal as such a

256 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" gime, " such a " shime " as one had never had
to put up with; a third treated with some
vigor the question of the enormous sums
due below stairs, in every department, for
gratuitous labor and wasted zeal. Our
young lady's consciousness was indeed mainly
filled for several days with the apprehension
created by the too slow subsidence of her
attendant's sense of wrong. These days
would be exciting indeed if an outbreak in
the kitchen should crown them ; and, to pro-
mote that prospect, she had more than one
glimpse, through Susan's eyes, of forces
making for an earthquake. To listen to
Susan was to gather that the spark applied
to the inflammables and already causing
them to crackle was the circumstance of
one's being called a horrid low thief for re-
fusing to part with one's own.

The redeeming point of this tension was,
on the fifth day, that it actually appeared to
have had to do with a breathless perception
in our heroine's breast that, scarcely more
as the centre of Sir Claude's than as that of
Susan's energies, she had soon after break-
fast been conveyed from London to Folke-
stone and established at a lovely hotel.
These agents, before her wondering eyes, had

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 257

combined to carry through the adventure and
to give it the air of having owed its success
to the fact that Mrs. Beale had, as Susan
said, but just stepped out. When Sir
Claude, watch in hand, had met this fact with
the exclamation "Then pack Miss Farange
and come off with us ! " there had ensued on
the stairs a series of gymnastics of a nature
to bring Miss Farange' s heart into her
mouth. She sat with Sir Claude in a four-
wheeler while he still held his watch; held
it longer than any doctor who had ever felt
her pulse, long enough to give her a vision of
something like the ecstasy of neglecting such
an opportunity to show impatience. The
ecstasy had begun in the schoolroom and over
the Berceuse, quite in the manner of the
same foretaste on the day, a little while
back, when Susan had panted up and she
herself, after the hint about the Duchess,
had sailed down; for what harm then had
there been in drops and disappointments if
she could still have, even only a moment,
the sensation of such a name "brought up"?
It had remained with her that her father had
told her she would some day be in the street,
but it clearly wouldn't be this day; and she
felt justified of her preference as soon as her
17

258 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

visitor had set Susan in motion and laid his
hand, while she waited with him, kindly on
her own. That was what the Captain in
Kensington Gardens had done; her present
situation reminded her a little of that one,
and renewed the dim wonder of the way in
which, from the first, such pats and pulls had
struck her as the steps and signs of other
people's business and even a little as the
wriggle or the overflow of their difficulties.
What had failed her and what had frightened
her on the night of the Exhibition lost them-
selves at present alike in the impression that
what would come from Sir Claude was too
big to come all at once. Any awe that
might have sprung from his air of leaving
out her stepmother was corrected by the
force of a general rule, the odd truth that if
Mrs. Beale now never came nor went with-
out making her think of him, it was not, to
balance that, the main character of his own
contact to appear to be a reference to Mrs.
Beale. To be with Sir Claude was to think
of Sir Claude, and that law governed Maisie's
mind until, through a sudden lurch of the
cab, which had at last taken in Susan and
ever so many bundles and almost reached
Charing Cross, it popped again somehow

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 259

into her dizzy head the long-lost image of
Mrs. Wix.

It was singular, but from this time she
understood and she followed, followed with
the sense of an ample filling-out of any void
created by symptoms of avoidance and of
flight. Her ecstasy was a thing that had yet
more of a face than of a back to turn, a pair
of eyes still directed to Mrs. Wix even after
the slight surprise of their not finding her,
as the journey expanded, either at the London
station or at the Folkestone hotel. It took
few hours to make the child feel that if she
was in neither of these places she was at least
everywhere else. Maisie had known all
along a great deal, but never so much as she
was to know from this moment on, and as
she learned in particular during the couple
of days that she was to hang in the air, as it
were, over the sea which represented, in
breezy blueness and with a summer charm, a
crossing of more spaces than the Channel.
It was given to her at this time to arrive at
divinations so ample that I shall have no
room for the goal if I attempt to trace the
stages; as to which therefore I must be
content to say that the fullest expression we
may give to Sir Claude's conduct is a poor

260 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

and pale copy of the picture it presented to
his young friend. Abruptly, that morning,
he had yielded to the action of the idea
pumped into him for weeks by Mrs, Wix on
lines of approach that she had been capable
of the extraordinary art of preserving from
entanglement with the fine network of his
relations with Mrs. Beale. The breath of
her sincerity, blowing without a break, had
puffed him up to the flight by which, in the
degree I have indicated, Maisie too was car-
ried off her feet. This consisted in neither
more nor less than the brave stroke of his
getting off from Mrs. Beale as well as from
his wife — of making with the child straight
for some such foreign land as would give a
support to Mrs. Wix's dream that she might
still see his errors renounced and his delin-
quencies redeemed. What other reparation
could have the beauty of his devoting him-
self, under eyes that would miss no faintest
shade of the sacrifice, to the relief and rescue,
to what even the strange frequenters of her
ladyship's earlier period used to call the
real good, of the little unfortunate ? Maisie' s
head held a suspicion of all that, during the
last long interval, had confusedly, but quite
candidly, come and gone in his own ; a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 261

glimpse, almost awe-stricken in its gratitude,
of the miracle her old governess had wrought.
That functionary could not, in this connec-
tion, have been more impressive, even at
second-hand, if she had been a prophetess
with an open scroll or some ardent abbess
speaking with the lips of the Church. She
had clung day by day to their plastic asso-
ciate, plying him with her deep, narrow pas-
sion, doing her simple utmost to convert him,
and so inspiring him that he had at last really
embraced his fine chance. That the chance
was not delusive was sufficiently guaranteed
by the completeness with which he could
finally figure it out that, in case of his taking
action, neither Ida nor Beale, whose book on
each side it would only too well suit, would
make any sort of row.

It sounds, no doubt, too penetrating, but
it was by no means all through Sir Claude's
betrayals that Maisie was able to piece to-
gether the beauty of the special influence
through which, for such stretches of time,
he had refined upon propriety by keeping so
far as possible his sentimental interests dis-
tinct. She had ever of course in her mind
fewer names than conceptions, but it was
only with this drawback that she now made

262 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

out her companion's absences to have had
for their ground that he was the lover of her
stepmother, and that the lover of her step-
mother could scarce logically pretend to a
superior right to look after her. Maisie had
by this time embraced the implication of a
kind of natural divergence between lovers and
little girls. It was just this indeed that
could throw light on the probable contents
of the pencilled note deposited on the hall-
table in the Regent's Park, and which would
greet Mrs. Beale on her return. Maisie
freely figured it as provisionally jocular in
tone, even though to herself, on this occasion,
Sir Claude turned a graver face than he had
shown in any crisis but that of putting her
into the cab when she had been horrid to
him after her parting with the Captain. He
might really be embarrassed, but he would
be sure, to her view, to have muffled in some
bravado of pleasantry the disturbance pro-
duced at her father's by the removal of a
valued servant. Not that there was n't a
great deal too that would n't be in the note —
a great deal for which a more comfortable
place was Maisie's light little brain, where
it hummed away hour after hour and caused
the first outlook at Folkestone to swim in

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 263

a softness of color and sound. It became
clear in this medium that her stepfather had
really now only to take into account his en-
tanglement with Mrs. Beale. Was n't he at
last disentangled from every one and every-
thing else? The obstacle to the rupture
pressed upon him by Mrs. Wix in the inter-
est of his virtue would be simply that he
was in love, or rather, to put it more pre-
cisely, that Mrs. Beale had left him no doubt
of the degree in which she was. She was so
much so as to have succeeded in making him
accept for a time her infatuated grasp of him
and even to some extent the idea of what they
yet might do together with a little diplomacy
and a good deal of patience. I may not even
answer for it that Maisie was not aware of
how, in this, Mrs. Beale failed to share his
all but insurmountable distaste for their
allowing their little charge to breathe the air
of their gross irregularity — his contention,
in a word, that they should either cease to
be irregular or cease to be parental. Their
little charge, for herself, had long ago
adopted the view that even Mrs. Wix had at
one time not thought prohibitively coarse —
the view that she was after all, as a little
charge, morally at home in atmospheres it

264 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

would be appalling to analyze. If Mrs. Wix,
however, ultimately appalled, had now set her
heart on strong measures, Maisie, as I have
intimated, could also work round both to the
reasons for them and to the quite other
reasons for that lady's not, as yet at least,
appearing in them at first hand.

Oh, decidedly, I shall never get you to be-
lieve the number of things she saw and the
number of secrets she discovered ! Why in
the world, for instance, could n't Sir Claude
have kept it from her — except on the hypoth-
esis of his not caring to — that, when you
came to look at it and so far as it was a
question of vested interests, he had quite as
much right in her as her stepmother, and a
right that Mrs. Beale was in no position tQ
dispute? He failed, at all events, of any
such successful ambiguity as could keep
her, when once they began to look across at
France, from regarding even what was least
explained as most in the spirit of their old
happy times, their rambles and expeditions
in the easier, better days of their first ac-
quaintance. Never before had she had so
the sense of giving him a lead for the sort of
treatment of what was between them that
would best carry it off, or of his being grate-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 265

ful to her for meeting him so much in the
right place. She met him literally at the
very point where Mrs. Beale was most to be
reckoned with, the point of the jealousy that
was sharp in that lady and of the need of their
keeping it as long as possible obscure to her
that poor Mrs. Wix had still a hand. Yes,
she met him too in the truth of the matter
that, as her stepmother had had no one else
to be jealous of, she had made up for so gross
a privation by directing the sentiment to a
moral influence. Sir Claude appeared abso-
lutely to convey in a wink that a moral influ-
ence that could pull a string was after all a
moral influence that could have its eyes
scratched out ; and that, this being the case,
there was somebody they couldn't afford to
expose before they should see a little better
what Mrs. Beale was likely to do. Maisie,
true enough, had not to put it into words to
rejoin in the coffee-room at luncheon:
" What can she do but come to you if papa
does take a step that will amount to legal
desertion ? " Neither had he then, in answer,
to articulate anything but the jollity of their
having found a table at a window from
which, as they partook of cold beef and apol-
linaris — for he hinted they would have to

266 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

save lots of money — they could let their
eyes hover tenderly on the far-off white cliffs
that so often had signalled to the embar-
rassed English a promise of safety. Maisie
stared at them as if she might really make
out after a little a queer, dear figure perched
on them — a figure as to which she had
already the subtle sense that, wherever
perched, it would be the very oddest yet seen
in France. But it was at least as exciting
to feel where Mrs. Wix was n't as it would
have been to know where she was ; and if she
wasn't yet at Boulogne, this only thickened
the plot.

If she was not to be seen that day, how-
ever, the evening was marked by an appari-
tion before which, none the less, the savor
of suspense folded, on the spot, its wings.
Adjusting her respirations and attaching,
under dropped lashes, all her thoughts to a
smartness of frock and frill for which she
could reflect that she had not appealed in
vain to a loyalty, in Susan Ash, triumphant
over the nice things their feverish flight had
left behind, Maisie spent on the bench in
the garden of the hotel the half-hour before
dinner, that mysterious ceremony of the table
d'hdte for which she had prepared with a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 267

'punctuality of flutter. Sir Claude, beside
her, was occupied with a cigarette and the
afternoon papers ; and though the hotel was
full the garden showed the particular void
that ensues upon the sound of the dressing-
bell. She had almost had time to weary of
the human scene ; her own humanity, at any
rate, in the shape of a smutch on her scanty
skirt, had held her so long that as soon as
she raised her eyes they rested on a high,
fair drapery by which smutches were put to
shame and which had glided toward her over
the grass without her perceiving its rustle.
She fallowed up its stiff sheen — up and up
from the ground, where it had stopped — till,
at the end of a considerable journey, her
impression felt the shock of the fixed face
which, surmounting it, seemed to offer the
climax of the dressed condition. "Why,
mamma ! " she cried the next instant — cried
in a tone that, as she sprang to her feet,
brought Sir Claude to his own beside her
and gave her ladyship, a few yards off, the
advantage of their momentary confusion.
Poor Maisie's was immense; her mother's
drop had the effect of one of the iron shut-
ters that, in evening walks with Susan Ash,
she had seen suddenly, at the touch of a

268 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

spring, rattle down over shining shop-fronts.
The light of foreign travel was darkened at a
stroke; she had a horrible sense that they
were caught; and for the first time in her
life, in Ida's presence, she so far translated
an impulse into an invidious act as to clutch
straight at the hand of her responsible con-
federate. It did n't help her that he appeared
at first equally hushed with horror; a minute
during which, in the empty garden, with its
long shadows on the lawn, its blue sea over
the hedge and its startled peace in the air,
both her elders remained as stiff as tall tum-
blers filled to the brim and held straight for
fear of a spill. At last, in a tone that, in its
unexpected softness, enriched the whole sur-
prise, her mother said to Sir Claude: "Do
you mind at all my speaking to her? "

"Oh, no; do you?" His reply was so
long in coming that Maisie was the first to
find the right note.

He laughed as he seemed to take it from
her, and she felt a sufficient concession in
his manner of addressing their visitor.
" How in the world did you know we were
here?"

His wife, at this, came the rest of the way
and sat down on the bench with a hand laid

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 269

on her daughter, whom she gracefully drew
to her and in whom, at her touch, the fear
just kindled gave a second jump, but now in
quite another direction. Sir Claude, on the
further side, resumed his seat and his news-
papers, and the three grouped themselves like
a family party : his connection, in the oddest
way in the world, almost cynically, and in a
flash, acknowledged, and the mother patting
the child into conformities unspeakable.

Maisie could already feel that it was not
Sir Claude and she who were caught. She
had the positive sense of catching their
relative, catching her in the act of getting
rid of her burden with a finality that showed
her as unprecedentedly relaxed. Oh, yes,
the fear had dropped, and she had never been
so irrevocably parted with as in the pressure
of possession now supremely exerted by Ida's
long-gloved and much-bangled arms. " I went
to the Regent's Park " — this was presently
her ladyship's answer to Sir Claude.

" Do you mean to-day? "

"This morning — just after your own call
there. That's how I find you out; that's
what has brought me."

Sir Claude considered, and Maisie waited.
"Whom then did you see? "

270 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Ida gave a sound of indulgent mockery.
" I like your scare. I know your game. I
did n't see the person I risked seeing — but
I had been ready to take my chance of her."
She addressed herself to Maisie; she had
encircled her more closely. " I asked for
you, my dear, but I saw no one but a dirty
parlor-maid. She was red in the face with
the great things that, as she told me, had
just happened in the absence of her mistress;
and she luckily had the sense to have made
out the place to which Sir Claude had come
to take you. If he had n't given a false scent
I should find you here : that was the supposi-
tion on which I 've proceeded. " Ida had
never been so explicit about proceeding or
supposing, and Maisie, drinking this in, was
aware that Sir Claude shared her fine im-
pression of it. "I wanted to see you," his
wife continued, "and now you can judge of
the trouble I 've taken. I had everything
to do in town to-day, but I managed to get
off."

Maisie and her companion, for a moment,
did justice to this achievement; but Maisie
was the first to express it. "I'm glad you
wanted to see me, mamma." Then after
a concentration more deep and with a plunge

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 271

more brave: "A little more and you 'd have
been too late." It stuck in her throat, but
she brought it out. "We're going to
France."

Ida was magnificent ; Ida kissed her on the
forehead. " That 's just what I thought likely
— it made me decide to run down. I fan-
cied that in spite of your scramble you 'd
wait to cross, and it added to the reason I
have for seeing you. "

Maisie wondered intensely what the reason
could be, but she knew ever so much better
than to ask. She was slightly surprised
indeed to perceive that Sir Claude did n't,
and to hear him immediately inquire:
"What in the name of goodness can you
have to say to her ? "

His tone was not exactly rude, but it was
impatient enough to make his wife's re-
sponse a fresh specimen of the new softness.
"That, my dear man, is all my own busi-
ness."

"Do you mean," Sir Claude asked, "that
you wish me to leave you with her? "

" Yes — if you '11 be so good. That 's the
extraordinary request I take the liberty of
making." Her ladyship had dropped to a
mildness of irony by which, for a moment,

272 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

poor Maisie was mystified and charmed, puz-
zled with a glimpse of something that in all
the years had at intervals peeped out. Ida
smiled at Sir Claude with the strange air
she had on such occasions of defying an in-
terlocutor to keep it up as long; her huge
eyes, her red lips, the intense marks in her
face, formed an illumination as distinct and
public as a lamp set in a window. The
child seemed quite to see in it the very lamp
that had lighted her path; she suddenly
found herself reflecting that it was no won-
der the gentlemen were dazzled. This must
have been the way mamma had first looked
at Sir Claude; it brought back the lustre of
the time they had outlived. It must have
been the way she looked also at Mr. Perriam
and Lord Eric; above all it contributed in
Maisie' s mind to a completer view of the
Captain. Our young lady grasped this idea
with a quick lifting of the heart ; there was
a stillness during which her mother flooded
her with a wealth of support to the Captain's
striking tribute. This stillness remained
long enough unbroken to represent that Sir
Claude too might literally be struggling
again with the element that had originally
upset him : so that Maisie quite hoped he

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 273

would at least say something to show a recog-
nition that she could be charming.

What he presently said was: "Are you
putting up for the night?"

His wife hesitated. "Not here — I've
come from Dover."

Over Maisie's head, at this, they still faced
each other. " You spend the night there ? "

" Yes — I brought some things. I went to
the hotel and hastily arranged; then I
caught the train that whisked me on here.
You see what a day I've had of it."

The statement may surprise, but these
were really as obliging if not as lucid words
as, into her daughter's ears at least, Ida's
lips had ever dropped ; and there was a quick
desire in the daughter that, for the hour at
any rate, they should duly be welcomed as a
ground of intercourse. Certainly mamma
had a charm which, when turned on, became
a large explanation ; and the only danger
now in an impulse to applaud it would be
that of appearing to signalize its rarity.
Maisie, however, risked this peril in the
geniality of an admission that Ida had indeed
had a rush ; and she invited Sir Claude to
expose himself by agreeing with her that the
rush had been even worse than theirs. He
18

274 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

appeared to meet this appeal by saying with
detachment enough: "You go back there
to-night?"

" Oh, yes — there are plenty of trains. "
Again Sir Claude hesitated; it would have
been hard to say if the child between them
more connected or divided them. Then he
brought out quietly : ** It will be late for you
to knock about. I '11 see you over."

" You need n't trouble, thank you. I think
you won't deny that I can help myself and
that it is n't the first time in my dreadful life
that I 've somehow managed it." Save for
this allusion to her dreadful life they talked
there, Maisie noted, as if they were only
rather superficial friends; a special effect
that she had often wondered at before in the
midst of what she supposed to be intimacies.
This effect was augmented by the almost
casual manner in which her ladyship went
on : "I dare say I shall go abroad. "

" From Dover, do you mean, straight ? "

"How straight I can't say. I'm exces-
sively ill." This, for a minute, struck Maisie
as but a part of the conversation ; at the end
of which time she became aware that it ought
to strike her — as it apparently didn't strike
Sir Claude — as a part of something graver.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 275

It helped her to twist nearer. " 111, mamma
— really ill?"

She regretted her " really " as soon as she
had spoken it ; but there could n't be a better
proof of her mother's present polish than
that Ida showed no gleam of a temper to
take it up. She had taken up at other
times much tinier things. She only pressed
Maisie's head against her bosom and said:
"Shockingly, my dear. I must go to that
new place."

"What new place?" Sir Claude inquired.

Ida thought, but could n't recall it. " Oh,
' Chose, ' you know — where every one goes.
I want some proper treatment. It 's all I 've
ever asked for on earth. But that 's not what
I came to say. "

Sir Claude, in silence, folded one by one
his newspapers; then he rose and stood
whacking the palm of his hand with the
bundle. " You '11 stop and dine with us ? "

"Dear no — I can't dine at this sort of
hour. I ordered dinner at Dover."

Her ladyship's tone in this one instance
showed a certain superiority to those condi-
tions in which her daughter had artlessly
found Folkestone a paradise. It was yet not
so crushing as to nip in the bud the eager-

276 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

ness with which the latter broke out : " But
won't you at least have a cup of tea? "

Ida kissed her again on the brow.
"Thanks, love. I had tea before coming."
She raised her eyes to Sir Claude. " She is
sweet!" He made no more answer than if
he did n't agree ; but Maisie was at ease
about that and was still taken up with the joy
of this happier pitch of their talk, which put
more and more of a meaning into the Cap-
tain's version of her ladyship and literally
kindled a conjecture that this admirer might,
over there at the other place, be waiting for
her to dine. Was the same conjecture in Sir
Claude's mind ? He partly puzzled her, if
it had risen there, by the slight perversity
with which he returned to a question that his
wife evidently thought she had disposed of.

He whacked his hand again with his papers.
" I had really much better take you."

"And leave Maisie here alone?"

Mamma so clearly didn't want it that
Maisie leaped at the vision of a Captain who
had seen her on from Dover and who, while
he waited to take her back, would be hover-
ing just at the same distance at which, in
Kensington Gardens, the companion of his
walk had herself hovered. Of course, how-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 277

ever, instead of breathing any such guess she
let Sir Claude reply ; all the more that his
reply could contribute so much to her own
present grandeur. " She won't be alone
when she has a maid in attendance."

Maisie had never before had so much of a
retinue and she waited also to enjoy the ef-
fect of it on her ladyship. " You mean the
woman you brought from town? " Ida con-
sidered. " The person at the house spoke of
her in a way that scarcely made her out com-
pany for my child." She spoke as if her
child had never wanted, in her hands, for pro-
digious company. But she as distinctly con-
tinued to decline Sir Claude's. " Don't be an
old goose," she said charmingly. " Let us
alone."

Before them, on the grass, he looked
graver than Maisie at all now thought the
occasion warranted. " I don't see why you
can't say it before me."

His wife smoothed one of her daughter's
curls. "Say what, dear?"

" Why, what you came to say."

At this Maisie at last interposed ; sh£ ap-
pealed to Sir Claude. " Do let her say it to
me."

He looked hard for a moment at his little

278 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

friend. " How do you know what she may
say?"

" She must risk it," Ida remarked.

" I only want to protect you," he continued
to the child.

" You want to protect yourself — that 's
what you mean," his wife replied. " Don't
be afraid. I won't touch you."

" She won't touch you — she won't ! "
Maisie declared. She felt by this time that
she could really answer for it, and something
of the emotion with which she had listened
to the Captain came back to her. It made
her so happy and so secure that she could
positively patronize mamma. She did so in
the Captain's very language. " She 's good,
she 's good ! " she proclaimed.

" Oh, Lord ! " Sir Claude, at this, ejacu-
lated. He appeared to have emitted some
sound of derision that was smothered, to
Maisie's ears, by her being again embraced
by his wife. Ida released her and held her
off a little, looking at her with a very queer
face. Then the child became aware that
their companion had left them and that, from
the face in question, a confirmatory remark
had proceeded.

" I am good, love," said her ladyship.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 279

XXI

A GOOD deal of the rest of Ida's visit was
devoted to explaining, as it were, so extra-
ordinary a statement. This explanation was
more copious than any she had yet indulged
in, and as the summer twilight gathered and
she kept her child in the garden she was con-
ciliatory to a degree that let her need to
arrange things a little perceptibly peep out.
It was not merely that she explained; she
almost conversed : all that was wanting to
that was that she should have positively
chattered a little less. It was really the oc-
casion of Maisie's life on which her mother
was to have had most to say to her. That
alone was an implication of generosity and
virtue, and no great stretch was required to
make our young lady feel that she should
best meet her and soonest have it over by
simply seeming struck with the propriety of
her contention. They sat together while the
parent's gloved hand sometimes rested
sociably on the child's and sometimes gave a
corrective pull to a ribbon too meagre or a
tress too thick ; and Maisie was conscious of

28o WHAT MAISIE KNEW

the effort to keep out of her eyes the wonder
with which they were occasionally moved to
blink. Oh, there would have been things to
blink at if one had let one's self go ; and it
was lucky they were alone together, without
Sir Claude or Mrs. Wix or even Mrs. Beale
to catch an imprudent glance. Though pro-
fuse and prolonged, her ladyship was not
exhaustively lucid, and her account of her
situation, so far as it could be called
descriptive, was a muddle of inconsequent
things, bruised fruit of an occasion she had
rather too lightly affronted. None of them
were really thought out, and some were even
not wholly insincere. It was as if she had
asked outright what better proof could have
been wanted of her goodness and her great-
ness than just this marvellous consent to give
up what she had so cherished. It was as if
she had said in so many words : " There
have been things between us — between Sir
Claude and me — which I needn't go into,
you little nuisance, because you would n't
understand them." It suited her to convey
that Maisie had been kept, so far as she was
concerned or could imagine, in a holy igno-
rance and that she must take for granted a
supreme simplicity. She turned this way

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 281

and that in the predicament she had sought
and from which she could neither retreat with
grace nor emerge with credit; she draped
herself in the tatters of her impudence, pos-
tured to her utmost before the last little tri-
angle of cracked glass to which so many
fractures had reduced the polished plate of
filial superstition. If neither Sir Claude nor
Mrs. Wix was there this was perhaps all the
more a pity : the scene had a style of its own
that would have qualified it for presentation,
especially at such a moment as that of her
letting it betray that she quite did think her
wretched offspring better placed with Sir
Claude than in her own soiled hands. There
was at any rate nothing scant either in her
admissions or her perversions, the mixture of
her fear of what Maisie might undiscoverably
think and of the support she at the same time
gathered from a necessity of selfishness and
a habit of brutality. This habit flushed
through the merit she now made, in terms
explicit, of not having come to Folkestone to
kick up a vulgar row. She had not come to
box any ears or to bang any doors or even
to use any language; she had come, at the
worst, to lose the thread of her argument in
an occasional dumb, disgusted twitch of the

282 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

toggery in which Mrs. Beale's low domestic
had had the impudence to serve up Miss
Farange. She checked all criticism, not
committing herself even as much as about
those missing comforts of the schoolroom on
which Mrs. Wix had presumed.

" I am good — I'm crazily, I 'm criminally
good. But it won't do for you any more, and
if I Ve ceased to contend with him, and with
you too, who have made most of the trouble
between us, it 's for reasons that you '11 under-
stand one of these days but too well — one of
these days when I hope you '11 know what it
is to have lost a mother. I 'm awfully ill, but
you must n't ask me anything about it. If I
don't get off somewhere my doctor won't an-
swer for the consequences. He's stupefied
at what I Ve borne — he says it has been put
on me because I was formed to suffer. I 'm
thinking of South Africa, but that 's none of
your business. You must take your choice
— you can't ask me questions if you're so
ready to give me up. No, I won't tell you :
you can find out for yourself. South Africa
is wonderful, they say, and if I do go it
must be to give it a fair trial. It must be
either one thing or the other; if he takes
you, you know, he takes you. I Ve struck

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 283

my last blow for you ; I can follow you no
longer from pillar to post. I must live for
myself at last — while there 's still a handful
left of me. I 'm very very ill ; I 'm very very
tired ; I 'm very very determined. There you
have it : make the most of it. Your frock is
too filthy — but I came to sacrifice myself."
Maisie looked at the peccant places; there
were moments when it was a relief to her to
drop her eyes even on anything so sordid.
All her interviews, all her ordeals with her
mother had, as she had grown older, seemed
to have, before any other, the hard quality of
duration ; but longer than any, strangely, were
these minutes offered to her as so pacific and
so agreeably winding up the connection. It
was her anxiety that made them long, her fear
of some hitch, some check of the current, one
of her ladyship's famous quick jumps. She
held her breath ; she only wanted, by play-
ing into her visitor's hands, to see the thing
through. But her impatience itself made at
instants the whole situation swim ; there were
things Ida said which she perhaps did n't
hear, and there were things she heard that
Ida perhaps did n't say. " You 're all I have,
and yet I 'm capable of this. Your father
wishes you were dead — that, my dear, is

284 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

what your father wishes. You '11 have to get
used to it as I Ve done — I mean to his wish-
ing that I'm dead. At all events you see for
yourself how wonderful I am to Sir Claude.
He wishes me dead quite as much ; and I 'm
sure that if making me scenes about you could
have killed me — ! " It was the mark of Ida's
eloquence that she started more hares than
she followed, and she gave but a glance in
the direction of this one; going on to say
that the very proof of her treating her hus-
band like an angel was that he had just stolen
off not to be fairly shamed. She spoke as if
he had retired on tiptoe as he might have
withdrawn from a place of sanctity in which
he was not fit to be present. " You '11 never
know what I Ve been through about you —
never, never, never. I spare you everything,
as I always have ; though I dare say you know
things that, if I did (I mean if I knew you
knew them), would make me — well, no mat-
ter ! You 're old enough at any rate to know
there are a lot of things I don't say that
I easily might; though it would do me
good, I assure you, to have spoken my mind
for once in my life. I don't speak of your
father's infamous wife : that may give you a
notion of the way I 'm letting you off. When

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 285

I say * you ' I mean your precious friends and
backers. If you don't do justice to my for-
bearing, out of delicacy, to mention, just as a
last word, about your stepfather, a little fact
or two — of a kind that really I should only
have to mention to shine, myself, in com-
parison and after every calumny, like pure
gold : if you don't do me that justice you '11
never do me justice at all ! "

Maisie's desire to show what justice she
did her had by this time become so intense
as to have brought with it an inspiration.
The great effect of their encounter had been
to confirm her sense of being launched with
Sir Claude, to make it rich and full beyond
anything she had dreamed, and everything
now conspired to suggest that a single soft
touch of her small hand would complete the
good work and set her ladyship so promptly
and majestically afloat as to leave the great
sea-way clear for the morrow. This was the
more the case as her hand had for some
moments been rendered free by a marked
manoeuvre of both of her mother's. One of
these capricious members had fumbled with
visible impatience in some backward depth
of drapery, and had presently reappeared
with a small object in its grasp. The act had

286 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

a significance for a little person trained, in that
relation, from an early age, to keep an eye on
manual motions, and its possible bearing was
not darkened by the memory of the handful
of gold that Susan Ash would never, never
believe Mrs. Beale had sent back — " not she ;
she's too false and too greedy!" — to the
munificent Countess. To have guessed, none
the less, that her ladyship's purse might con-
fess an identity with the token extracted from
the rustling covert of her rear — this suspicion
gave on the spot to the child's eyes a direc-
tion carefully distant. It added moreover to
the optimism that for the hour could ruffle
the surface of her deep diplomacy, ruffle it
to the point of making her forget that she
had never been safe unless she had also been
stupid. She in short forgot her habitual
caution in her impulse to adopt her lady-
ship's practical interests and show her lady-
ship how perfectly she understood them.
She saw without looking that her mother
pressed a little clasp ; heard without wanting
to the sharp click that marked the closing
of a portemonnaie from which something had
been taken. What this was she just did n't
see : it was not too substantial to be locked
with ease in the fold of her ladyship's fingers.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 287

Nothing was less new to Maisie than the art
of not thinking singly ; so that at this instant
she could both bring out what was on her
tongue's end and weigh as to the object in
her mother's palm, the question of its being
a sovereign against the question of its being
a shilling. No sooner had she begun to
speak than she saw that within a few sec-
onds this question would have been settled :
she had foolishly arrested the rising word of
the little speech of presentation to which,
under the circumstances, even such a high
pride as Ida's had had to give some thought.
She had arrested it completely — that was
the next thing she felt : the note she sounded
brought into her companion's eyes a look
that, quickly enough, seemed at variance with
presentations.

"That was what the Captain said to me
that day, mamma: I think it would have
given you pleasure to hear the way he spoke
of you."

The pleasure, Maisie could now in conster-
nation reflect, would have been a long time
coming if it had come no faster than the re-
sponse evoked by her allusion to it. Her
mother gave her one of the looks that
slammed the door in her face: never, in a

288 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

career of unsuccessful experiments, had
Maisie had to take such a stare. It re-
minded her of the way that once, at one of
the lectures in Glower Street, something in
a big jar that, amid an array of strange
glasses and bad smells, had been promised
as a beautiful yellow was produced as a
beautiful black. She had been sorry on
that occasion for the lecturer, but she was
at this moment sorrier for herself. Oh,
nothing had ever made for twinges like
mamma's manner of saying: "The Captain?
What captain ? "

" Why, when we met you in the Gardens
— the one who took me to sit with him.
That was exactly what he said. "

Ida met her so far as to appear for an in-
stant to pick up a lost thread. "What on
earth did he say ? "

Maisie faltered supremely, but supremely
she brought it out. " What you say, mamma.
That you 're so good."

"What ' I ' say? " Ida slowly rose, keep-
ing her eyes on her child, and the hand that
had busied itself in her purse conformed,
at her side and amid the folds of her dress,
to a certain stiffening of the arm. " I say
you 're a precious idiot, and I won't have you

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 289

put words into my mouth ! " This was much
more peremptory than a mere contradiction :
Maisie could only feel on the spot that every-
thing had broken short off and that their
communication had abruptly ceased. That
came out as Ida went on: "What business
have you to speak to me of him ? "

Her daughter turned scarlet. " I thought
you liked him."

"Him — the biggest cad in London?"
Her ladyship towered again, and in the gath-
ered dusk the whites of her eyes were huge.

Maisie' s own, however, could by this time
pretty well match them ; and she had at least
now, with the first flare of anger that had
ever yet lighted her face for a foe, the sense
of looking up quite as hard as any one could
look down. " Well, he was kind about you
then ; he was, and it made me like him. He
said things — they were beautiful ; they were,
they were ! " She was almost capable of the
violence of forcing this home; for even in
the midst of her surge of passion — of which,
in fact, it was a part — there rose in her a
fear, a pain, a vision ominous, precocious,
of what it might mean for her mother's fate
to have forfeited such a loyalty as that.
There was literally an instant ifi which
19

290 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Maisie fully saw — saw madness and desola-
tion, saw ruin and darkness and death. " I 've
thought of him often since, and I hoped it
was with him — with him — " Here, in her
emotion, it failed her, the breath of her filial
hope.

But Ida got it out of her. " You hoped,
you little horror — ?"

"That it was he who's at Dover; that it
was he who 's to take you. I mean to South
Africa," Maisie said with another drop.

Ida's stupefaction, on this, kept her silent
unnaturally long; so long that her daughter
could not only wonder what was coming, but
perfectly measure the decline of every symp-
tom of her liberality. She loomed there in
her grandeur, merely dark and dumb; her
wrath was clearly still, as it had always been,
a thing of resource and variety. What Maisie
least expected of it was, by this law, what
now occurred : it melted, in the summer twi-
light, gradually into pity, and the pity, after
a little, found a cadence to which the renewed
click of her purse gave an accent. She had
put back what she had taken out. "You 're
a dreadful, dismal, deplorable little thing!"
she murmured ; and with this she turned her
back and rustled away over the lawn.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 291

After she had disappeared Maisie dropped
upon the bench again and for some time, in
the empty garden and the deeper dusk, sat
and stared at the image her flight had still
left standing. It had ceased to be her mother
only, in the strangest way, that it might be-
come her father, the father of whose wish
that she were dead the announcement still
lingered in the air. It was a presence with
vague edges — it continued to front her, to
cover her; but what reality that she need
reckon with did it represent if Mr. Farange
were, on his side, also going off — 'going off
to America with the Countess, or even only
to Spa ? That question had, from the house,
a sudden gay answer in the great roar of a
gong, and at the same moment she saw Sir
Claude look out for her from the wide,
lighted doorway. At this she went to him,
and he came forward and met her on the
lawn. For a minute she was there with
him in silence as, just before, at the last,
she had been with her mother.

"She's gone?"

"She's gone."

Nothing more, for the instant, passed be-
tween them but to move together to the
house, where, in the hall, he indulged in

292 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

one of those sudden pleasantries with which,
to the delight of his stepdaughter, his
native animation abounded. "Will Miss
Farange do me the honor to accept my
arm ? "

There was nothing in all her days that
Miss Farange had accepted with such bliss
— a bright, rich element that floated them
together to their feast ; before they reached
which, however, she uttered, in the spirit of
a glad young lady taken in to her first dinner,
a sociable word that made him stop short.
"She goes to South Africa."

"To South Africa?" His face for a
moment seemed to swing for a jump; the
next it took its spring into the extreme of
hilarity. "Is that what she said?"

"Oh, yes, quite distinctly. For the
climate."

Sir Claude was now looking at a young
woman with black hair, a red frock and a
tiny terrier tucked under her elbow : she
swept past them on her way to the dining-
room, leaving an impression of a strong
scent which mingled, amid the clatter of the
place, with the hot aroma of food. He had
become a little graver; he still stopped to
talk. "I see — I see." Other people

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 293

brushed by ; he was not too grave to notice
them. " Did she say anything else ? "

" Oh, yes — a lot more. "

On this he met her eyes again with some
intensity ; but he only repeated : " I see — I
see. "

Maisie had still her own vision, she brought
out "I thought she was going to give me
something."

"What kind of a thing?"

" Some money that she took out of her
purse and then put back. "

Sir Claude's amusement reappeared. " She
thought better of it? Dear thrifty soul!
How much did she make by that manoeuvre ? "

Maisie considered. " I did n't see. It
was very small."

Sir Claude threw back his head. "Do
you mean very little? Sixpence? "

Maisie resented this almost as much as if,
at dinner, she were already bandying jokes
with an agreeable neighbor. " It may have
been a sovereign."

"Or even," Sir Claude suggested, "a ten-
pound note." She flushed at this sudden
picture of what she perhaps had lost, and he
made it more vivid by adding: "Rolled up
in a tight little ball, you know — her way of

294 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

treating bank-notes as if they were curl-
papers ! " Maisie's flush deepened both with
the immense plausibility of this and with
a fresh wave of the consciousness that was
always there to remind her of his cleverness

— the consciousness of how immeasurably
more, after all, he knew about mamma than
she. She had lived with her so many times
without discovering the material of her curl-
papers or assisting at any other of her deal-
ings with bank-notes. The tight little ball
had at any rate rolled away from her forever

— quite like one of the other balls that Ida's
cue used to send flying. Sir Claude gave
her his arm again, and by the time she was
seated at the table she had perfectly made
up her mind as to the amount of the sum
she had forfeited. Everything about her,
however — the crowded room, the bedizened
banquet, the savor of dishes, the drama of
figures — ministered to the joy of life. After
dinner she smoked with her friend — for that
was exactly what she felt she did — on a
porch, a kind of terrace, where the red tips
of cigars and the light dresses of ladies
made, under the happy stars, a poetry that
was almost intoxicating. They talked but
little, and she was slightly surprised at his

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 295

asking for no more news of what her mother
had said ; but she had no need of talk, for it
seemed to her that without it her sense of
everything overflowed. They smoked and
smoked, and there was a sweetness in her
stepfather's silence. At last he said: "Let
us take another turn — but you must go to
bed soon. Oh, you know, we 're going to
have a system ! " Their turn was back into
the garden, along the dusky paths from which
they could see the black masts and the red
lights of boats and hear the calls and cries
that evidently had to do with happy foreign
travel ; and their system was once more to
get on beautifully in this further lounge
without a definite exchange. Yet he finally
spoke — he broke out as he tossed away the
match from which he had taken a fresh light.
" I must go for a stroll ; I 'm in a fidget — I
must walk it off." She fell in with this as
she fell in with everything; on which he
went on : " You go up to Miss Ash " — it was
the name they had started. " You must see
she 's not in mischief. Can you find your
way alone ? "

" Oh, yes ; I 've been up and down seven
times. " She positively enjoyed the prospect
of an eighth.

296 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Still they didn't separate; they stood
smoking together under the stars. Then at
last Sir Claude produced it. "I'm free —
I'm free!"

She looked up at him ; it was the very spot
on which a couple of hours before she had
looked up at her mother. " You 're free —
you're free."

" To-morrow we go to France. " He spoke
as if he had not heard her; but it did n't pre-
vent her again concurring.

" To-morrow we go to France. "

Again he appeared not to have heard her;
and after a moment — it was an effect evi-
dently of the depth of his reflections and the
agitation of his soul — he also spoke as if he
had not spoken before. " I'm free — I 'mfree."

She repeated her form of assent. " You 're
free — you 're free. "

This time he did hear her and fixed her
through the darkness with a grave face. But
he said nothing more; he simply stooped a
little and drew her to him — simply held
her a little and kissed her good-night; after
which, having given her a silent push up-
stairs to Miss Ash, he turned round again to
the black masts and the red lights. Maisie
mounted as if France were at the top.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 297

XXII

THE next day it seemed to her at the bot-
tom — down too far in shuddering plunges
even to leave her a sense, on the Channel
boat, of the height at which Sir Claude re-
mained and which had never, in every way,
been so great as when, much in the wet,
though in the angle of a screen of canvas, he
sociably sat with his stepdaughter's head in
his lap and that of Mrs. Beale's housemaid
fairly pillowed on his breast. Maisie was
surprised to learn, as they drew into port,
that they had had a lovely passage, but this
emotion at Boulogne was speedily quenched
in others, above all in the great ecstasy of a
larger impression of life. She was " abroad, "
and she gave herself up to it, responded to it
in the bright air. before the pink houses,
among the bare-legged fishwives and the red-
legged soldiers, with the instant certitude of
a vocation. Her vocation was to see the
world and to thrill with relish of the pic-
ture; she had grown older in five minutes and
had, by the time they reached the hotel,
recognized in the institutions and manners
of France a multitude of affinities and mes-

298 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

sages. Literally, in the course of an hour,
she found her initiation; a consciousness
much quickened by the superior part that,
as soon as they had gobbled down a French
breakfast — which was indeed a high note in
the concert — she observed herself to play to
Susan Ash. Sir Claude, who had already
bumped against people he knew and who,
as he said, had business and letters, sent them
out together for a walk — a walk in which
the child was avenged, so far as poetic jus-
tice required, not only for the loud giggles
that, in their London trudges, used to break
from her attendant, but for all the years of
her tendency to produce socially that impres-
sion of an excess of the queer something
which had seemed to waver so widely between
innocence and guilt. On the spot, at Bou-
logne, though there might have been excess
there was at least no wavering: she iden-
tified, she understood, she adored and took
possession ; feeling herself attuned to every-
thing and laying her hand, right and left, on
what had simply been waiting for her. She
explained to Susan, she laughed at Susan,
she towered over Susan; and it was somehow
Susan's stupidity, of which she had never
yet been so sure, and Susan's bewilderment

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 299

and ignorance and antagonism, that gave the
liveliest rebound to her immediate percep-
tions and adoptions. The place and the
people were all a picture together, a picture
that, when they went down to the wide sands,
shimmered, in a thousand tints, with the
pretty organization of the plage, with the
gayety of spectators and bathers, with that of
the language and the weather, and above all
with that of our young lady's unprecedented
situation. For it appeared to her that no
one, since the beginning of time, could have
had such an adventure or, in an hour, so
much experience ; as a sequel to which she
only needed, in order to feel with conscious
wonder how the past was changed, to hear
Susan, inscrutably aggravated, express a
preference for the Edgware Road. The past
was so changed and the circle it had formed
already so overstepped that on that very
afternoon, in the course of another walk, she
found herself inquiring of Sir Claude — and
without a single scruple — if he were pre-
pared as yet to name the moment at which
they should start for Paris. His answer, it
must be said, gave her the least little chill.

"Oh, Paris, my dear child — I don't quite
know about Paris ! "

300 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

This required to be met, but it was much
less to challenge him than for the rich joy
of her first discussion of the details of a tour
that, after looking at him an instant, she re-
plied: "Well, isn't that the real thing, the
thing that when one does come abroad — ? "
He had turned grave again, and she merely
threw that out : it was a way of doing jus-
tice to the seriousness of their life. She
could n't, moreover, be so much older since
yesterday without reflecting that if by this
time she probed a little he would recog-
nize that she had done enough for mere
patience. There was in fact something in
his eyes that suddenly, to her own, made her
desertion shabby. Before she could remedy
this he had answered her last question, an-
swered it in the way that, of all ways, she
had least expected. "The thing it doesn't
do not to do ? Certainly — Paris is charm-
ing. But, my dear fellow, Paris eats your
head off. I mean it 's so beastly expensive. "

That note gave her a start ; it suddenly let
in a harder light. Were they poor, then?
— that is, was he poor, really poor beyond
the pleasantry of apollinaris and cold beef?
They had walked to the end of the long jetty
that enclosed the harbor, and were looking

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 301

out at the dangers they had escaped, the gray
horizon that was England, the tumbled sur-
face of the sea and the brown smacks that
bobbed upon it. Why had he chosen an em-
barrassed time to make this foreign dash? —
unless indeed it was just the dash economic,
of which she had often heard and on which,
after another look at the gray horizon and the
bobbing boats, she was ready to turn round
with elation. She replied to him quite in his
own manner. " I see — I see." She smiled
up at him. " Our affairs are involved."

"That's it" — he returned her smile.
"Mine are not quite so bad as yours; for
yours are really, my dear man, in a state I
can't see through at all. But mine will
do — for a mess."

She thought this over. " But is n't France
cheaper than England ? " England, over
there in the thickening gloom, looked just
then remarkably dear.

" I dare say — some parts. "
"Then can't we live in those parts? "
There was something that for a moment,
in satisfaction of this, he had the air of being
about to say and yet not saying. What he
presently said was : " This very place is one
of them."

302 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"Then we shall live here?"

He did n't treat it quite as definitely as she
liked. " Since we 've come to save money ! "

This made her press him more. " How
long shall we stay ? "

"Oh, three or four days."

It took her breath away. " You can save
money in that time ? "

He burst out laughing, starting to walk
again and taking her under his arm. He
confessed to her on the way that she too had
put a finger on the weakest of all his weak-
nesses, the fact, of which he was perfectly
aware, that he probably might have lived
within his means if he had never done any-
thing for thrift. "It's the happy thoughts
that do it," he said; "there's nothing so
ruinous as putting in a cheap week. " Maisie
heard afresh, among the pleasant sounds of
the closing day, that steel click of Ida's
change of mind ; she thought of the ten-pound
note it would have been delightful at this
juncture to produce for her companion's en-
couragement. But the idea was dissipated
by his saying irrelevantly, in the presence of
the next thing they stopped to admire : " We
shall stay till she arrives."

She turned upon him. " Mrs. Beale ? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 303

"Mrs. Wix. I 've had a wire/' he went
on. " She has seen your mother."

" Seen mamma ? " Maisie stared. " Where
in the world ? "

" Apparently in London. They 've been
together."

For an instant this looked ominous — a
fear came into her eyes. "Then she has n't
gone?"

" Your mother ? — to South Africa ? I give
it up, dear boy," Sir Claude said; and she
seemed literally to see him give it up as he
stood there and with a kind of absent gaze
— absent, that is, from her affairs — followed
the fine stride and shining limbs of a young
fishwife who had just waded out of the sea
with her basketful of shrimps. His thought
came back to her sooner than his eyes.
" But I dare say it 's all right. She would n't
come if it was n't — poor old thing : she knows
rather well what she 's about."

This was so reassuring that Maisie, after
turning it over, could make it fit into her
dream. " \Vell, what is she about ? "

He stopped looking, at last, at the fishwife;
he met his companion's inquiry. "Oh, you
know ! " There was something in the way
he said it that made between them more of

304 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

an equality than she had yet imagined ; but it
had also more the effect of raising her up than
of letting him down, and what it did with her
was shown by the sound of her assent.

"Yes — I know!" What she knew, what
she could know, is by this time no secret
to us: it grew and grew, at any rate, the
rest of that day, in the air of what he took
for granted. It was better he should do
that than attempt to test her knowledge;
but there, at the worst, was the gist of the
matter: it was open between them at last
that their great change, as, speaking as if it
had already lasted weeks, Maisie called it,
was somehow built up round Mrs. Wix.
Before she went to bed that night she knew,
further, that Sir Claude, since, as he called
it, they had been on the rush, had received
more telegrams than one. But they sepa-
rated again without speaking of Mrs. Beale.

Oh, what a crossing for the straighteners
and the old brown dress — which latter
appurtenance the child saw thriftily revived
for the possible disasters of travel ! The
wind got up in the night, and from her little
room at the inn Maisie could hear the noise
of the sea. The next day it was raining and
everything different : this was the case even

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 305

with Susan Ash, who positively crowed over
the bad weather, partly, it seemed, for relish
of the time their visitor would have in the
boat, and partly to point the moral of the
folly of coming to such holes. In the wet,
with Sir Claude, Maisie went to the Folke-
stone packet, on the arrival of which, with
many signs of the fray, he made her wait
under an umbrella on the quay; whence,
almost before the vessel touched, he was to
be descried, in quest of their friend, wrig-
gling — that had been his word — through the
invalids massed upon the deck. It was long
till he reappeared — it was not indeed till
every one had landed; when he presented
the object of his benevolence in a light that
Maisie scarce knew whether to hold the
depth of prostration or the climax of success.
The lady on his arm, still bent beneath her
late ordeal, was muffled in such draperies as
had never contributed so much support to
so much misery. At the hotel, an hour
later, this ambiguity dropped : assisting Mrs.
Wix in private to refresh and reinvest her-
self, Maisie heard from her in detail how
little she could have achieved if Sir Claude
hadn't put it in her power. It was a phrase
that, in her room, she repeated in connec-

20

306 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

tions indescribable: he had put it in her
power to have "changes," as she said, of the
most intimate order, adapted to climates and
occasions so various as to foreshadow in them-
selves the stages of a vast itinerary. Cheap
weeks would of course be in their place after
so much money spent on a governess ; sums
not grudged, however, by this lady's pupil
even on her feeling her own appearance give
rise, through the straighteners, to an atten-
tion perceptibly mystified. Sir Claude, in
truth, had had less time to devote to it than
to Mrs. Wix's; and moreover she would
rather be in her own shoes than in her
friend's creaking new ones in the event of an
encounter with Mrs. Beale. Maisie was too
lost in the idea of Mrs. Beale's judgment of
so much newness to pass any judgment her-
self. Besides, after much luncheon and
many endearments, the question took quite
another turn, to say nothing of the pleasure
of the child's quick view that there were
other eyes than Susan Ash's to open to what
she could show. She could n't show much,
alas, till it stopped raining, which it declined
to do that day; but this had only the effect
of leaving more time for Mrs. Wix's own
demonstration. It came as they sat in the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 307

little white and gold salon which Maisie
thought the loveliest place she had ever seen
except perhaps the apartment of the Coun-
tess ; it came while the hard summer storm
lashed the windows and blew in such a chill
that Sir Claude, with his hands in his pockets
and a cigarette in his teeth, fidgeting, frown-
ing, looking out and turning back, ended by
causing a smoky little fire to be made in the
dressy little chimney. It came in spite of
something that could only be named his air
of wishing to put it off; an air that had
served him — oh, as all his airs served him ! —
to the extent of his having for a couple of
hours confined the conversation to gratuitous
jokes and generalities, kept it on the level
of the little empty coffee-cups and petits
verres (Mrs. Wix had had two of each !) that
struck Maisie, through the fumes of the
French fire and the English tobacco, as a
token, more than ever, that they were
launched. She felt now, in close quarters
and as clearly as if Mrs. Wix had told her,
that what this lady had come over for was
not merely to be chaffed and to hear her
pupil chaffed — not even to hear Sir Claude,
who knew French in perfection, imitate the
strange sounds emitted by the English folk

3o8 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

at the hotel. It was perhaps half an effect
of her present renovation — as if her clothes
had been somebody's else: she had at any
rate never produced such an impression of
high color, of a redness really so vivid as to
be feverish. Her heart was not at all in
the gossip about Boulogne; and if her com-
plexion was partly the result of the cttjetiner
and the petits verres, it was also the brave
signal of what she was there to say. Maisie
knew, when this did come, how anxiously it
had been awaited by the youngest member
of the party. "Her ladyship packed me off
— she almost put me into the cab ! " That
was what Mrs. Wix at last brought out.

XXIII

SIR CLAUDE was stationed at the window;
he didn't so much as turn round; and it was
left to Maisie to take up the remark. " Do
you mean you went to see her yesterday? "

" She came to see me; she knocked at my
shabby door; she mounted my squalid stair.
She told me she had seen you at Folkestone."

Maisie wondered. "She went back that
evening ? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 309

" No ; yesterday morning. She drove to
me straight from the station. It was remark-
able. If I had a job to get off she did noth-
ing to make it worse — she did a great deal
to make it better." Mrs. Wix hung fire,
though the flame in her face burned brighter;
then she became capable of saying: "Her
ladyship's kind! She did what I didn't
expect."

Maisie, on this, looked straight at her
stepfather's back; it might well have been
for her, at that hour, a monument of her
ladyship's kindness. It remained as such,
at all events, monumentally still, and for a
time that permitted the child to ask of their
companion : " Did she really help you? "

"Most practically." Again Mrs. Wix
paused ; again she quite vibrated. " She
gave me a ten-pound note. "

At that, still looking out, Sir Claude, in
the window, laughed loud. " So, you see,
Maisie, we 've not quite lost it ! "

"Oh, no!" Maisie responded. "Isn't
that too charming?" She smiled at Mrs.
Wix. "We know all about it." Then, on
her friend's showing such blankness as was
compatible with such a flush, she pursued:
" She does want me to have you ? "

310 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Mrs. Wix showed a final timidity, which,
however, while Sir Claude drummed on the
window pane, she presently surmounted.
It came to Maisie that in spite of his drum-
ming and of his not turning round he was
really so much interested as to leave himself,
in a manner, in her hands ; which, somehow,
suddenly seemed to her a greater proof than
he could have given by interfering. " She
wants me to have you! " Mrs. Wix rang out.

Maisie answered this bang at Sir Claude.
"Then that 's nice for all of us."

Of course it was, his continued silence
sufficiently admitted, while Mrs. Wix rose
from her chair and, as if to take more of a
stand, placed herself, not without majesty,
before the fire. The incongruity of her
smartness, the circumference of her stiff
frock presented her as really more ready for
Paris than any of them. She also gazed hard
at Sir Claude's back. "Your wife was dif-
ferent from anything she had ever shown me.
She recognizes certain proprieties."

" Which ? — do you happen to remember ? "
Sir Claude asked.

Mrs. Wix's reply was prompt. "The im-
portance for Maisie of a gentlewoman — of
some one who is not — well, so bad ! She

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 311

objects to a mere maid, and I don't in the
least mind telling you what she wants me to
do." One thing was clear — Mrs. Wix was
now bold enough for anything. " She wants
me to persuade you to get rid of the person
from Mrs. Beale's." Maisie waited for Sir
Claude to pronounce on this ; then she could
only understand that he, on his side, waited,
and she felt particularly full of common sense
as she met her responsibility. " Oh, I don't
want Susan with you! " she said to Mrs.
Wix.

Sir Claude, always from the window,
approved. " That 's quite simple. I'll take
her back."

Mrs. Wix gave a positive jump; Maisie
caught her look of alarm. " ' Take ' her ?
You don't mean go over on purpose? "

Sir Claude said nothing for a moment;
after which, "Why shouldn't I leave you
here?" he inquired.

Maisie, at this, sprang up. " Oh, do, oh,
do, oh, do ! " The next moment she was
interlaced with Mrs. Wix, and the two, on
the hearth-rug, their eyes in each other's
eyes, considered the plan with intensity.
Maisie then perceived the difference of what
they saw in it. " She can surely go back

3i2 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

alone ; why should you put yourself out ? "
Mrs. Wix demanded.

" Oh, she 's an idiot — she 's incapable. If
anything should happen to her it would be
awkward ; it was I who brought her — • with-
out her asking. If I turn her away I ought
with my own hand to place her exactly
where I found her."

Mrs. Wix's face appealed to Maisie on
such folly, and her manner, as directed to
their companion, had, to her pupil's surprise,
an unprecedented sharpness. "Dear Sir
Claude, I think you 're perverse. Pay her
fare and give her a sovereign. She has had
an experience that she never dreamed of and
that will be an advantage to her through life.,
If she goes wrong on the way it will be sim-
ply because she wants to, and, with her
expenses and her remuneration — make it
even what you like! — you will have treated
her as handsomely as you always treat every
one."

This was a new tone — as new as Mrs.
Wix's cap; and it could strike a perceptive
person as the upshot of a relation that had
taken on a new character. It brought out,
for Maisie, how much more even than she
had guessed her friends were fighting side

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 313

by side. At the same time it needed so
definite a justification that, as Sir Claude
now, at last, did face them, she at first sup-
posed it in resentment of excessive familiar-
ity. She was therefore yet more puzzled to
see him show the whole of his serene beauty,
as well as an equal interest in a matter quite
distinct from any freedom but her ladyship's.
"Did my wife come alone? " He could ask
even that good-humoredly.

"When she called on me?" Mrs. Wix
was red now; his good humor could n't
keep down her color, which, for a minute,
glowed there like her ugly honesty. "No
— there was some one in the cab. " The
only attenuation she could think of was
after a minute to add: "But they didn't
come up."

Sir Claude broke into a laugh — Maisie
herself could guess what it was at : while he
now walked about, still laughing, and at the
fireplace gave a gay kick to a displaced log,
she felt more vague about almost everything
than about the drollery of such a " they ! "
She in fact could scarce have told you if it
was to deepen or to cover the joke that she
bethought herself to remark: "Perhaps it
was her maid."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Mrs. Wix gave her a look that, at any
rate, deprecated the wrong tone. "It was
not her maid."

" Do you mean there are, this time, two ? "
Sir Claude asked as if he had not heard.

" Two maids ? " Maisie went on as if she
might assume he had.

The reproach of the straighteners dark-
ened; but Sir Claude cut across it with a
sudden " See here — what do you mean ?
And what do you suppose she meant ? "

Mrs. Wix let him for a moment in silence
understand that the answer to his question,
if he didn't take care, might give him more
than he wanted. It was as if, with this
scruple, she measured and adjusted all that
she gave him in at last saying : " What she
meant was to make me know that you 're
definitely free. To have that straight from
her was a joy I, of course, had n't hoped for:
it made the assurance, and my delight at it,
a thing I really proceed upon. You already
know I would have started even if she had n't
pressed me ; you already know what, so long,
we have been looking for and what, as soon
as she told me of her step taken at Folke-
stone, I recognized with rapture that we
have. It 's your freedom that makes me

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 315

right " — she fairly bristled with her logic.
"But I don't mind telling you that it 's her
action that makes me happy! "

"Her action?" Sir Claude echoed.
" Why, my dear woman, her action is just a
heinous crime. It happens to satisfy our
sympathies in a way that's quite delicious;
but that doesn't in the least alter the fact
that it 's the most abominable thing ever
done. She has chucked our friend here
overboard not a bit less than if she had
shoved her, shrieking and pleading, out of
that window and down two floors upon the
paving-stones."

Maisie surveyed serenely the parties to the
discussion. " Oh, your friend here, dear Sir
Claude, doesn't plead and shriek! "

He looked at her a moment. "Never.
Never. That's one — only one, but charm-
ing so far as it goes — of about a hundred
things we love her for." Then he pursued
to Mrs. Wix: "What I can't for the life of
me make out is what Ida is really up to, what
game she was playing in turning to you with
that cursed cheek after the beastly way she
has used you. Where — to explain her at all
— does she fancy she can presently, when
we least expect it, take it out of us? "

3i6 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"She doesn't fancy anything nor want
anything out of any one. Her cursed
cheek, as you call it, is the best thing I 've
ever seen in her. I don't care a fig for the
beastly way she used me — I forgive it all a
thousand times over ! " Mrs. Wix raised
her voice as she had never raised it; she
quite triumphed in her lucidity. " I under-
stand her — I almost admire her ! " she
proclaimed. She spoke as if this might
practically suffice; yet in charity to fainter
lights she threw out an explanation. "As
I 've said, she was different; upon my word
I would n't have known her. She had a
glimmering — she had an instinct : they
brought her. It was a kind of happy
thought, and if you could n't have supposed
she would ever have had such a thing, why,
of course, I quite agree with you. But she
did have it. There ! "

Maisie could see that, from what it with
liveliness lacked, this demonstration gathered
a certain something that might almost have
exasperated. But as she had often watched
Sir Claude in apprehension of displeasure
that did n't come, so now, instead of his
saying " Oh, hell ! " as her father used, she
observed him only to take refuge in a ques-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 317

tion that, at the worst, was abrupt. " Who
is it this time, do you know ? "

Mrs. Wix tried blind dignity. "Who is
what, Sir Claude ? "

"The man who stands the cabs. Who
was in the one that waited at your door ? "

At this challenge she faltered so long that
it occurred to Maisie' s conscience to give
her a hand. " It was n't the Captain."

Her good intention, however, only changed
her old friend's scruple to a more ambiguous
stare ; besides, of course, making Sir Claude
go off. Mrs. Wix fairly appealed to him.
"Must I really tell you?"

His amusement continued. "Did she
make you promise not to ? "

Mrs. Wix looked at him still harder. " I
mean — before Maisie. "

Sir Claude laughed again. "Why, she
can't hurt him ! "

Maisie felt herself, as it passed, brushed
by the light humor of this. "Yes, I can't
hurt him ! "

The straighteners again roofed her over;
after which they seemed to crack with the
explosion of their wearer's honesty. Amid
the flying splinters Mrs. Wix produced a
name. "Mr. Tischbein."

318 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

There was for an instant a silence that,
under Sir Claude's influence and while he
and Maisie looked at each other, suddenly
pretended to be that of gravity. "We don't
know Mr. Tischbein — do we, dear ? "

Maisie gave the point all needful thought.
"No — not Mr. Tischbein."

It was a passage that worked visibly on
their friend. "You must excuse me, Sir
Claude," she said with an austerity of which
the note was real, " if I thank God to your
face that he has in his mercy — I mean his
mercy to our charge — allowed me to achieve
this act." She gave out a long puff of pain.
"It was time!" Then as if still more to
point the moral : " I said just now I under-
stood your wife. I said just now I admired
her. I stand to it: I did both of those
things when I saw how even she, poor thing,
saw. If you want the dots on the i's you
shall have them. What she came to me for,
in spite of everything, was that I 'm just
— " she quavered it out — " well, just clean !
What she saw for her daughter was that
there must at last be a decent person ! "

Maisie was quick enough to jump a little
at the sound of this implication that such
a person was what Sir Claude was not; the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 319

next instant, however, she more profoundly
guessed against whom the discrimination
was made- She was therefore left the more
surprised at the complete candor with which
he embraced the worst. "If she 's bent on
decent persons, why has she given her to me ?
You don't call me a decent person, and I '11
do Ida the justice that she never did. I
think I 'm as indecent as any one, and that
there 's nothing in my behavior that makes
my wife's surrender a bit less ignoble!"

"Don't speak of your behavior," Mrs. Wix
cried; "don't say such horrible things:
they 're false and they 're wicked and I for-
bid you ! It 's to keep you decent that I 'm
here and that I 've done everything I have
done: it 's to save you — I won't say from
yourself, because in yourself you 're beauti-
ful and good ! It 's to save you from the
worst person of all; I haven't, after all,
come over to be afraid to speak of her !
That 's the person in whose place her ladyship
wants such a person as even me; and if she
thought herself, as she as good as told me,
not fit for Maisie's company, it 's not, as you
may well suppose, that she may make room
for Mrs. Beale ! "

Maisie watched his face as it took this

320 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

outbreak, and the most she saw in it was
that it turned a little white. That indeed
made him look, as Susan Ash would have
said, queer, and it was perhaps a part of the
queerness that he intensely smiled. " You 're
too hard on Mrs. Beale. She has great
merits of her own."

Mrs. Wix, at this, instead of immediately
replying, did what Sir Claude had been doing
before : she moved across to the window and
stared a while into the storm. There was
for a minute, to Maisie' s sense, a hush that
resounded with wind and rain. Sir Claude,
in spite of these things, glanced about for
his hat ; on which Maisie spied it first and,
making a dash for it, held it out to him.
He took it with the gleam of a "Thank you "
in his face, but as he did so something
moved her still to hold the other side of the
brim ; so that united by their grasp of this
object they stood some seconds looking
many things at each other. By this time
Mrs. Wix had fronted them. " Do you mean
to tell me," she demanded, "that you are
going back ? "

" To Mrs. Beale ? " Maisie surrendered his
hat, and there was something that touched
her in the embarrassed, almost humiliated

WHAT MAISIE^KNEW 321

way their companion's challenge made him
turn it round and round. She had seen
people do that who, she was sure, did noth-
ing else that Sir Claude did. " I can't just
say, my dear thing. We'll see about it —
we '11 talk of it to-morrow. Meantime I
must get some air."

Mrs. Wix, with her back to the window,
threw up her head to a height that still, for
a moment, had the effect of detaining him.
"All the air in France, Sir Claude, won't,
I think, give you the courage to deny that
you 're simply afraid of her ! "

Oh, this time he did look queer; Maisie
had no need of Susan's vocabulary to note
it ! It would have come to her of itself as,
with his hand on the door, he turned his
eyes from his stepdaughter to her governess
and then back again. Resting on Maisie' s,
though for ever so short a time, there was
something they gave up to her and tried to
explain. His lips, however, explained noth-
ing ; they only completed his collapse. " Yes.
I'm simply afraid of her!" He opened
the door and passed out.

It brought back to Maisie his confession
of fear of her mother; it made her step-
mother then the second lady about whom he

21

322 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

failed of the particular virtue that was sup-
posed most to mark a gentleman. In fact
there were three of them if she counted in
Mrs. Wix, before whom he had undeniably
quailed. Well, his want of valor was but a
deeper appeal to her tenderness. To thrill
with response to it she had only to remember
all the ladies she herself had, as they called
it, funked.

XXIV

IT continued to rain so hard that her fond
private calculation of explaining the Con-
tinent to their visitor had to contain a pro-
viso for some adequate treatment of the
weather. At the table d'hote that evening
she threw out a variety of lights : this was
the second ceremony of the sort she had sat
through, and she would have neglected her
privilege and dishonored her vocabulary —
which indeed consisted mainly of the names
of dishes — if she had not been proportion-
ately ready to dazzle with interpretations.
Preoccupied and overawed, Mrs. Wix was
comparatively dim : she accepted her pupil's
version of the mysteries of the menu in a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 323

manner that might have struck the child as
the depression of a credulity conscious not
so much of its needs as of its dimensions.
Maisie was soon enough — though it scarce
happened before bedtime — confronted again
with the different sort of prospectus for
which she reserved her criticism. They re-
mounted together to their sitting-room while
Sir Claude, who said he would join them
later, remained below to smoke and to con-
verse with the old acquaintances that he met
wherever he turned. He had offered his
companions, for coffee, the enjoyment of the
salon de lecture ; but Mrs. Wix had replied
promptly, and with something of an air, that
it struck her their own apartments supplied
them every convenience. They supplied
the good lady herself, Maisie could immedi-
ately observe, not only that of this rather
grand reference — which, already emulous,
so far as it went, of her pupil, she made as if
she had spent her life in salons ; but that of
a lean French sofa where she could sit and
stare at the faint French lamp (in default of
the French clock that had stopped) as if for
some account of the time Sir Claude would
so markedly interpose. Her demeanor ac-
cused him so directly of hovering beyond

324 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

her reach that Maisie sought to divert her by
a report of Susan's quaint attitude toward
what they had talked of after lunch. Maisie
had mentioned to the young woman, for
sympathy's sake, the plan for her relief ; but
her disapproval of alien ways appeared,
strange to say, only to prompt her to hug
her gloom ; so that, between Mrs. Wix's ef-
fect of displacing her and the visible stiffen-
ing of her back, the child had the sense of a
double office, an enlarged play for pacific
powers.

These powers played to no great purpose,
it was true, in keeping before Mrs. Wix the
vision of Sir Claude's perversity, which hung
there in the pauses of talk and which he
himself, after unmistakable delays, finally
made quite lurid by bursting in — it was near
ten o'clock — with an object held up in his
hand. She knew before he spoke what it
was ; she knew at least from the underlying
sense of all that, since the hour spent after
the Exhibition with her father, had not
sprung up to reinstate Mr. Farange — she
knew it meant a triumph for Mrs. Beale.
The mere present sight of Sir Claude's face
caused her, on the spot, to drop straight
through her last impression of Mr. Farange a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 325

plummet that reached still deeper down than
the security of these days of flight. She
had wrapped that impression in silence — a
silence that had parted with half its veil to
cover also, from the hour of Sir Claude's ad-
vent, the image of Mr. Farange's wife. But
as the object in Sir Claude's hand revealed
itself as a letter which he held up very high,
so there was something in his mere motion
that laid Mrs. Beale again bare. " Here we
are ! " he cried almost from the door, shaking
his trophy at them and looking from one to
the other. Then he came straight to Mrs.
Wix: he had pulled two papers out of the
envelope and glanced at them again to see
which was which. He thrust one out open
to Mrs. Wix. " Read that." She looked at
him hard, as if in fear : it was impossible not
to see that he was excited. Then she took
the letter, but it was not her face that Maisie
watched while she read. Neither, for that
matter, was it this countenance that Sir
Claude scanned : he stood before the fire
and, more calmly now that he had acted,
communed in silence with his stepdaughter.
This silence was in truth quickly broken :
Mrs. Wix rose to her feet with the violence
of the sound she emitted. The letter had

326 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

dropped from her and lay upon the floor ; it
had made her turn ghastly white, and she
was speechless with the effect of it. " It 's
too abominable — it 's too unspeakable ! " she
then cried.

"Isn't it a charming thing?" Sir Claude
asked. " It has just arrived, enclosed in a
word of her own. She sends it on to me
with the remark that comment is superfluous.
I really think it is — that 's all you can say."

" She ought n't to pass such a horror
about," said Mrs. Wix. " She ought to put
it straight in the fire."

" My dear woman, she 's not such a fool !
It's much too precious." He had picked the
letter up, and he gave it, again, a glance of
complacency which produced a light in his
face. " Such a document " — he considered,
then concluded with a slight drop — " such a
document is, in fine, a basis."

"A basis for what?"

"Well — for proceedings."

" Hers ? " Mrs. Wix's voice had become
outright the voice of derision. " How can
she proceed ? "

Sir Claude turned it over. " How can she
get rid of him ? Well — she is rid of him."

" Not legally." Mrs. Wix had never looked

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 327

to her pupil so much as if she knew what she
was talking about.

"I dare say," Sir Claude laughed; "but
she 's not a bit less deprived than I am ! "

" Of the power to get a divorce? It's just
your want of the power that makes the scan-
dal of your connection with her. Therefore
it's just her want of it that makes that of
hers with you. That's all I contend!"
Mrs. Wix concluded with an unparalleled
neigh of battle. Oh, she did know what she
was talking about !

Maisie had meanwhile appealed mutely to
Sir Claude, who judged it easier to meet
what she did n't say than to meet what Mrs.
Wix did. "It's a letter to Mrs. Beale from
your father, my dear, written from Spa and
making the rupture between them perfectly
irrevocable. It lets her know, and not in
pretty language, that, as we technically say,
he deserts her. It puts an end, forever, to
their relations." He ran his eyes over it
again, then appeared to make up his mind.
" In fact it concerns you, Maisie, so nearly,
and refers to you so particularly, that I really
think you ought to see the terms in which
this new situation is created for you." And
he held out the letter.

328 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Mrs. Wix, at this, pounced upon it ; she
had grabbed it too soon even for Maisie to
become aware of being rather afraid of it.
Thrusting it instantly behind her, she posi-
tively glared at Sir Claude. "'See' it,
wretched man — the innocent child see such
a thing? I think you must be mad, and she
shall not have a glimpse of it while I 'm here
to prevent."

The breadth of her action had made Sir
Claude turn red — he even looked a little
foolish. "You think it's too bad, eh ? But
it 's precisely because it 's bad that it seemed
to me it would have a lesson and a virtue for
her."

Maisie could do a quick enough justice to
his motive to be able clearly to interpose.
She fairly smiled at him. " I assure you I
can quite believe how bad it is ! " She hesi-
tated an instant ; then she added : "I know
what 's in it."

He of course burst out laughing, and while
Mrs. Wix groaned an " Oh heavens ! " he
threw off: " You would n't say that, old boy,
if you did ! The point I make is," he con-
tinued to Mrs. Wix with a blandness now
re-established — " the point I make is simply
that it sets Mrs. Beale free."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 329

She hung fire but an instant. " Free to
live with you?"

" Free not to live, not to pretend to live,
with her husband."

" Ah, they 're mighty different things ! " —
a truth as to which her earnestness could now,
with a fine, inconsequent look, invite the par-
ticipation of the child.

Before Maisie could commit herself, how-
ever, the ground was occupied by Sir Claude,
who, as he stood before their visitor with an
expression half rueful, half persuasive, rubbed
his hand sharply up and down the back of
his head. "Then why the deuce do you
grant so — do you, I may even say, rejoice
so — that, by the desertion of my precious
partner, I'm free?"

Mrs. Wix met this challenge first with si-
lence, then with a demonstration the most
extraordinary, the most unexpected. Maisie
could scarcely believe her eyes as she saw
the good lady, with whom she had never
associated the faintest form of coquetry,
actually, after an upward grimace, give Sir
Claude a great giggling, insinuating, naughty
slap. "You wretch — you know why ! " And
she turned away. The face that, with this
movement, she left him to present to Maisie

330 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

was to abide with his stepdaughter as the
very image of stupefaction; but the pair
lacked time to communicate either amuse-
ment or alarm before their interlocutress was
upon them again. She had begun in fact to
show infinite variety, and she flashed about
with a still quicker change of tone. " Have
you brought me that thing as a pretext for
going over? "

Sir Claude braced himself. "I can't, after
such news, in common decency not. I mean
— don't you know? — in common courtesy and
humanity. My dear lady, you can't chuck a
woman that way, especially taking the mo-
ment when she has been most insulted and
wronged. A fellow must behave like a gen-
tleman, damn it, dear good Mrs. Wix. We
did n't come away, we two, to hang right on,
you know : it was only to try our paces and
just put in a few days that might prove to
every one concerned that we're in earnest.
It 's exactly because we 're in earnest that,
hang it, we need n't be so awfully particular.
I mean — don't you know? — we need n't be
so awfully afraid." He showed a vivacity, an
intensity of argument, and if Maisie counted
his words she was all the more ready to swal-
low, after a single swift gasp, those that, the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 331

next thing, she became conscious he paused
for a reply to. " We did n't come, old girl,
did we," he pleaded straight, " to stop right
away forever and put it all in now? "

Maisie had never doubted she could be
heroic for him. "Oh, no!" It was as if she
had been shocked at the bare thought.
"We're just taking it as we find it." She
had a sudden inspiration, which she backed
up with a smile. "We're just seeing what
we can afford." She had never yet, in her
life, made any claim for herself, but she hoped
that this time, frankly, what she was doing
would somehow be counted to her. Indeed
she felt Sir Claude was counting it, though
she was afraid to look at him — afraid she
should show him tears. She looked at Mrs.
Wix ; she reached her maximum. " I don't
think I should be bad to Mrs. Beale."

She heard on this a deep sound, some-
thing inarticulate and sweet, from Sir Claude ;
but tears were what Mrs. Wix did n't scruple
to show. " Do you think you should be bad
to me? " The question was the more discon-
certing that Mrs. Wix's emotion didn't de-
prive her of the advantage of her effect. " If
you see that woman again you 're lost ! " she
declared to their companion.

332 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Sir Claude looked at the moony globe of
the lamp ; he seemed to see for an instant
what seeing Mrs. Beale would consist of. It
was also apparently from this vision that he
drew strength to return : " Her situation, by
what has happened, is completely changed ;
and it 's no use your trying to prove to me
that I need n't take any account of that."

" If you see that woman you 're lost ! "
Mrs. Wix, with greater force, repeated.

" Do you think she '11 not let me come
back to you? My dear lady, I leave you
here, you and Maisie, as an hostage to for-
tune, and I promise you by all that 's sacred
that I shall be with you again, at the very
latest, on Saturday. I provide you with
funds ; I install you in these lovely rooms ; I
arrange with the people here that you be
treated with every attention and supplied
with every luxury. The weather, after this,
will mend ; it will be sure to be exquisite.
You '11 both be as free as air, and you can
roam all over the place and have tremendous
larks. You shall have a carriage to drive
you ; the whole house shall be at your call.
You '11 have, in a word, a magnificent posi-
tion." He paused, he looked from one of his
companions to the other as if to see the im-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 333

pression he had made. Whether or no he
judged it adequate he subjoined after a mo-
ment : " And you '11 oblige me, above all, by
not making a fuss."

Maisie could only answer for the impres-
sion on herself, though indeed from the heart
even of Mrs. Wix's rigor there floated, to her
sense, a faint fragrance of depraved conces-
sion. Maisie had her dumb word for the
show such a speech could make, for the
exquisite charm it could take from his ex-
quisite sincerity; and before she could do
anything but blink at excess of light she
heard this very word sound on Mrs. Wix's
lips, just as if the poor lady had guessed it and
wished, snatching it from her, to blight it like
a crumpled flower. " You 're dreadful, you 're
terrible, for you know but too well that it 's
not a small thing to me that you should ad-
dress me in a fashion that 's princely ! "
Princely was what he stood there and looked
and sounded ; that was what Maisie, for the
occasion, found herself reduced to simple
worship of him for being. Yet, strange to
say too, as Mrs. Wix went on, an echo rang
within her that matched the echo she had
herself just produced. " How much you
must want to see her, to say such things as

334 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

that and to be ready to do so much for the
poor little likes of Maisie and me ! She has
a hold of you, and you know it, and you
want to feel it again, and — from God knows,
or at least / know, what base motive and de-
sire— to enjoy it once more and give your-
self up to it ! It does n't matter if it 's one
day or three; enough's as good as a feast,
and the lovely time you '11 have with her is
something you 're willing to pay for ! I dare
say you 'd like me to believe that your pay
is to get her to give you up ; but that 's a
matter on which I adjure you not to put
down your money in advance. Give her up
first. Then pay her what you please ! "

Sir Claude took this to the end; though
there were things in it that made him color,
called into his face more of the apprehension
than Maisie had ever perceived there of a
particular sort of shock. She had an odd
sense that it was the first time she had seen
any one but Mrs. Wix really and truly scan-
dalized, and this fed her inference, which
grew and grew from moment to moment,
that Mrs. Wix was proving more of a force
to reckon with than either of them had allowed
so much room for. It was true that, long
before, she had obtained a "hold" of him,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 335

as she called it, different in kind from that
obtained by Mrs. Beale and, originally, by
her ladyship. But Maisie could quite feel
with him now that he had really not expected
that advantage to be driven so home. Oh,
they had n't at all got yet to where Mrs. Wix
would stop, for the next minute she was
driving harder than ever. It was the result
of his saying with a certain dryness, though
so kindly that what most affected Maisie in
it was his patience: "My dear friend, it's
simply a matter in which I must judge for
myself. You 've judged for me, I know, a
good deal of late, in a way that I appreciate,
I assure you, down to the ground. But you
can't do it always: no one can do that for
another, don't you see? in every case.
There are exceptions, particular cases that
turn up and that are awfully delicate. It
would be too easy if I could shift it all off
on you ; it would be allowing you to incur an
amount of responsibility that I should simply
become quite ashamed of. You '11 find, I 'm
sure, that you '11 have quite as much as
you '11 enjoy if you '11 be so good as to
accept the situation as circumstances happen
to make it for you, and to stay here with our
friend, till I rejoin you, on the footing of as

336 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

much pleasantness and as much comfort —
and I think I have a right to add, to both of
you, of as much faith in me — as possible. "

Oh, he was princely indeed ! that came out
more and more with every word he said and
with the particular way he said it, and Maisie
could feel his monitress stiffen almost with
anguish against the increase of his spell and
then hurl herself, as a desperate defence from
it, into the almost admitted inferiority of
violence, of iteration. "You're afraid of
her — afraid, afraid, afraid ! Oh, dear, oh,
dear, oh, dear ! " Mrs. Wix wailed it with a
high quaver, then broke down into a long
shudder of helplessness and woe. The next
minute she had flung herself again on the
hard sofa and had burst into a passion of
tears.

Sir Claude stood and looked at her a
moment; he shook his head slowly and al-
most tenderly. " I 've already admitted it —
I 'm in mortal terror, and we '11 let that settle
the question. I think you had best go to
bed," he added; "you've had a tremendous
day and you must both be tired to death.
I shall not expect you to concern yourselves
in the morning with my movements. There 's
an early boat on; I shall have cleared out

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 337

before you 're up; and I shall moreover have
dealt directly and most effectively, I assure
you, with the haughty but not quite hope-
less Miss Ash." He turned to his step-
daughter as if at once to take leave of her
and give her a sign of how, through all ten-
sion and friction, they were still united in
such a way that she at least needn't worry.
" Maisie, boy ! " — he opened his arms to her.
With her culpable lightness she flew into
them and, while he kissed her, chose the soft
method of silence to promise him the silence
that, after battles of talk, was the best balm
she could offer his wounds. They held each
other long enough to reaffirm intensely their
vows; after which they were almost forced
apart by Mrs. Wix's jumping to her feet.

Her jump, either with a quick return or
with a final lapse of courage, was also to
supplication almost abject. " I beseech you
not to take a step so miserable and so fatal.
I know her but too well, even if you jeer at
me for saying it; little as I 've seen her I
know her, I know her. I know what she '11
do — I see it as I stand here. Since you are
afraid of her, it 's the mercy of heaven ;
don't, for God's sake, be afraid to show it,
to profit by it and to arrive at the very safety

22

338 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

that it gives you. / 'm not afraid of her, I
assure you ; you must already have seen for
yourself that there's nothing I'm afraid of
now ! Let me go to her — I '11 settle her, and
I '11 take that woman back without a hair of
her touched. Let me put in the two or three
days — let me wind up the connection ! You
stay here with Maisie, with the carriage and
the larks and the luxury; then I '11 return
to you, and we '11 go off together and we '11
live together without a cloud. Take me,
take me," she went on and on — the tide of
her eloquence was high. "Here I am; I
know what I am and what I ain't; but I say
boldly to the face of you both that I '11 do
better for you, far, than ever she will even
try to. I say it to yours, Sir Claude, even
though I owe you the very dress on my back
and the very shoes on my feet. I owe you
everything — that 's just the reason; and to
pay it back, in profusion — what can that be
but what I want ? Here I am — here I am ! "
she repeated, spreading herself with an air
of exhibition that, combined with her inten-
sity and her decorations, appeared to suggest
her for strange offices and devotions, for
ridiculous replacements and substitutions.
She manipulated her gown as she talked, she

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 339

insisted on the items of her debt. " I have
nothing of my own, I know — no money, no
clothes, no appearance, no anything; noth-
ing but my hold of this one little truth which
is all in the world I can bribe you with —
that the pair of you are more to me than all
besides, and that if you '11 let me help you
and save you, make what you both want pos-
sible in the one way it can be, why, I '11
work myself to the bone in your service ! "

Sir Claude wavered there without an an-
swer to this magnificent appeal; he plainly
cast about for one, and in no small agita-
tion and pain. He addressed himself in his
quest, however, only to vague quarters, until
he met renewedly, as he so frequently and
actively met it, the more than filial gaze of
his intelligent little charge. That gave
him — poor plastic and dependent male — his
issue. If she was still a child, she was yet
of the sex that could help him out. He
signified as much by a renewed invitation to
an embrace; she freshly sprang to him, and
again they inaudibly conversed. " Be nice
to her, be nice to her," he at last distinctly
articulated — "be nice to her as you 've not
even been to me ! " On which, without
another look at Mrs. Wix, he somehow got

340 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

out of the room; leaving Maisie under the
slight oppression of these words as well as
of the idea that he had, unmistakably, once
more dodged.

XXV

EVERY single thing he had thus prophesied
came so true that it was after all no more
than fair to expect quite as much for what
he had as good as promised. His pledges
they could verify to the letter, down to his
very guarantee that a way would be found
with Miss Ash. Roused in the summer
dawn and vehemently squeezed by that inter-
esting exile, Maisie fell back upon her couch
with a renewed appreciation of his policy;
a memento of which, when she rose, later on,
to dress, glittered at her from the carpet in
the shape of a sixpence that had overflowed
from Susan's pride of possession. Six-
pences really, for the forty-eight hours that
followed, seemed to abound in her life; she
fancifully computed the number of them
represented by such a period of "larks."
The number was not kept down, she pres-
ently noticed, by any scheme of revenge for

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 341

Sir Claude's flight which should take, on
Mrs. Wix's part, the form of a refusal to
avail herself of the facilities he had so bravely
ordered. It was in fact impossible to escape
them; it was, in the good lady's own phrase,
ridiculous to go on foot when you had a car-
riage prancing at the door. Everything
about them pranced, the very waiters, even,
as they presented the dishes to which, from
a similar sense of the absurdity of perver-
sity, Mrs. Wix helped herself with a freedom
that spoke to Maisie quite as much of her de-
pletion as of her logic. Her appetite was a
sign to her companion of a great many
things, and testified not less, on the whole,
to her general than to her particular condi-
tions. She had arrears of dinner to make up,
and it was touching that in a dinnerless state
her moral passion should have burned so
clear. She partook largely, as a refuge from
depression, and yet the opportunity to par-
take was just a mark of the sinister symptoms
that depressed her. The affair was in short
a combat, in which the baser element tri-
umphed, between her refusal to be bought off
and her consent to be clothed and fed. It
was not, at any rate, to be gainsaid that
there was comfort for her in the develop-

342 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

ments of France ; comfort so great as to leave
Maisie free to take with her all the security
for granted and brush all the danger aside.
That was the way to carry out in detail Sir
Claude's injunction to be "nice;" that was
the way as well to look with her, in a sur-
vey of the pleasures of life abroad, straight
over the head of any doubt.

They shrunk at last, all doubts, as the
weather cleared up; it had an immense effect
on them and became quite as lovely as Sir
Claude had engaged. This seemed to have
put him so into the secret of things, and the
joy of the world so waylaid the steps of his
friends, that little by little the spirit of hope
filled the air and finally took possession of
the scene. To drive on the long cliff was
splendid, but it was perhaps better still to
creep in the shade — for the sun was strong
— along the many-colored and many-odored
port and through the streets in which, to
English eyes, everything that was the same
was a mystery and everything that was
different a joke. Best of all was to continue
the creep up the long Grand' Rue to the
gate of the haute ville and, passing beneath
it, mount to the quaint and crooked rampart,
with its rows of trees, its quiet corners and

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 343

friendly benches where brown old women,
in such white frilled caps and such long gold
earrings, sat and knitted or snoozed ; its little
yellow-faced houses that looked like the
homes of misers or of priests, and its dark
Chateau where small soldiers lounged on the
bridge that stretched across an empty moat
and military washing hung from the windows
of towers. This was a part of the place that
could lead Maisie to inquire if it did n't just
meet one's idea of the Middle Ages; and
since it was rather a satisfaction than a shock
to perceive, and not for the first time, the
limits, in Mrs. Wix's mind, of the historic
imagination, that only added one more to the
variety of kinds of insight that she felt it
her own present mission to show. They sat
together on the gray old bastion ; they looked
down on the little new town which seemed
to them quite as old, and across at the great
dome and the high gilt Virgin of the church
that, as they gathered, was famous and that
pleased them by its unlikeness to any place
in which they had worshipped. They wan-
dered in this temple afterwards, and Mrs.
Wix confessed that for herself she had
probably early in life made in not being a
Catholic a fatal mistake. Her confession

344 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

in its turn caused Maisie to wonder rather
interestedly what degree of maturity it was
that shut the door against an escape from
such an error. They went back to the ram-
part on the second morning: the spot in
which they appeared to have come furthest
on the journey that was to separate them
from everything that in the past had been
objectionable; it gave them afresh the im-
pression that had most to do with their hav-
ing worked round to a confidence that on
Maisie' s part was determined and that she
could see to be on her companion's desper-
ate. She had had for many hours the sense
of showing Mrs. Wix so much that she was
comparatively slow to become conscious of
being at the same time the subject of a simi-
lar process. The process went the faster,
however, from the moment she got her
glimpse of it; it then fell into its place in
her general, her habitual view of the particu-
lar phenomenon that, had she felt the need
of words for it, she might have called her
personal relation to her knowledge. This
relation had never been so lively as during
the time she waited with her old governess
for Sir Claude; and what made it so was
exactly that Mrs. Wix struck her as having

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 345

a new suspicion of it. Mrs. Wix had never
yet had a suspicion — that was certain — so
calculated to throw her pupil, in spite of the
closer union of these adventurous hours,
upon the deep defensive. Her pupil made
out indeed as many marvels as she had made
out on the rush to Folkestone; and if in Sir
Claude's company on that occasion Mrs.
Wix was the constant implication, so in Mrs.
Wix's, in the actual crisis, Sir Claude was

— and most of all through long pauses — the
perpetual, the insurmountable theme. It all
took them back to the first flush of his mar-
riage and to the place he held in the school-
room in those months of love and pain ; only
he had himself blown to a much bigger bal-
loon the large consciousness he then filled
out.

They went through it all again, and in-
deed while the interval lingered with the
very weight of its charm they went, in spite
of defences and suspicions, through every-
thing. Their intensified clutch of the future
throbbed like a clock ticking seconds; but
this was a timepiece that inevitably as well

— at the best — rang occasionally a porten-
tous hour. Oh, there were several of these,
and two or three of the worst on the old

346 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

city-wall where everything else so made for
peace. There was nothing in the world
Maisie more wanted than to be to Mrs.
Wix as nice as Sir Claude had desired; but
it was exactly because this fell in with her
inveterate instinct of keeping the peace that
the instinct itself was quickened. From the
moment it was quickened, however, it found
other work, and that was how, to begin with,
she produced the very complication she most
sought to avert. What she had essentially
done these days had been to read the un-
spoken into the spoken; so that thus, with
accumulations, it had become more definite
to her that the unspoken was, unspeakably,
the completeness of the sacrifice of Mrs.
Beale. There were times when every min-
ute that Sir Claude stayed away was like a
nail in Mrs. Beale's coffin. That brought
back to Maisie — it was a roundabout way —
the beauty and antiquity of her connection
with the flower of the Overmores, as well as
that lady's own grace and charm, her pecu-
liar prettiness and cleverness and even her
peculiar tribulations. A hundred things
hummed at the back of her head, but two of
these were simple enough. Mrs. Beale was
by the way, after all, just her stepmother and

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 347

her relative. She was just, and partly for
that very reason, Sir Claude's greatest in-
timate (" lady-intimate " was Maisie's term) :
so that what together they were, on Mrs.
Wix's programme, to give up and break short
off with was for one of them his particu-
lar favorite and for the other her father's
wife. Strangely, indescribably, her percep-
tion of reasons kept pace with her sense of
trouble ; but there was something in her that
without a supreme effort not to be shabby
could not take the reasons for granted. What
it comes to perhaps for ourselves is that,
disinherited and denuded as we have seen
her, there still lingered in her life an echo
of parental influence — she was still remi-
niscent of one of the sacred lessons of home.
It was the only one she retained, but luckily
she retained it with force. She enjoyed,
in a word, an ineffaceable view of the fact
that there were things papa called mamma
and mamma called papa a low sneak for
doing or for not doing. Now this rich
memory gave her a name that she dreaded
to invite to the lips of Mrs. Beale; she
would personally wince so just to hear it.
The very sweetness of the foreign life she
was steeped in added with each hour of

348 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Sir Claude's absence to the possibility of
such pangs. She watched beside Mrs. Wix
the great golden Madonna, and one of the
earringed old women who had been sitting
at the end of their bench got up and pot-
tered away. " Adieu, mesdames ! " said the
old woman in a little cracked, civil voice —
a demonstration by which our friends were
so affected that they bobbed up and almost
courtesied to her. They subsided again, and
it was shortly after, in a summer hum of
French insects and a phase of almost som-
nolent reverie, that Maisie most had the
vision of what it was to shut out from such
a perspective so appealing a participant. It
had not yet appeared so vast as at that mo-
ment, this prospect of statues shining in the
blue and of courtesy in romantic forms.

" Why, after all, should we have to choose
between you ? Why should n't we be four ? "
she finally demanded.

Mrs. Wix gave the jerk of a sleeper awak-
ened, or the start even of one who hears a
bullet whiz at a flag of truce ; her stupefac-
tion at such a breach of the peace delayed
for a moment her answer. " Four impropri-
eties, do you mean ? Because two of us hap-
pen to be decent people ! Do I gather you

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 349

to wish that I should stay on with you even
if that woman is capable — ? "

Maisie took her up before she could fur-
ther phrase Mrs. Beale's capability. "Stay
on as my companion — yes ; stay on as just
what you were at mamma's. Mrs. Beale
would let you ! " the child proclaimed.

Mrs. Wix had by this time fairly sprung
to her arms. "And who, I 'd like to know,
would let Mrs. Beale ? Do you mean, little
unfortunate, that you would ? "

" Why not ? — if now she ' s free. "

"Free? Are you imitating him? Well,
if Sir Claude 's old enough to know better,
upon my word I think it 's right to treat you
as if you also were. You '11 have to, at any
rate — to know better — if that's the line
you're proposing to take." Mrs. Wix had
never been so harsh, but, on the other hand,
Maisie could guess that she herself had
never appeared so wanton. What was un-
derlying, however, rather overawed than
angered her; she felt she could still insist
not for contradiction, but for ultimate calm.
Her wantonness meanwhile continued to
work upon her friend, who caught again, on
the rebound, the sound of deepest provoca-
tion. "Free, free, free? If she's as free

350 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

as you are, my dear, she 's free enough to be
sure ! "

"As I am?" — Maisie, after reflection
and in the face of what of portentous this
seemed to convey, risked a critical echo.

"Well," said Mrs. Wix, "nobody, you
know, is free to commit a crime."

"A crime?" — the word had come out in
a way that made the child echo it again.

"You'd commit as great a one as their
own — and so should I ! — if we were to con-
done their immorality by our presence."

Maisie waited a little; this seemed so
fiercely conclusive. "Why is it immoral-
ity ? " she nevertheless presently inquired.

Her companion now turned upon her with
a reproach softer because it was somehow
deeper. " You 're too unspeakable ! Do you
know what we 're talking about ? "

In the interest of ultimate calm Maisie
felt that she must be, above all, clear.
" Certainly ; about their taking advantage of
their freedom. "

"Well, to do what?"

"Why, to live with us."

Mrs. Wix's laugh, at this, was literally
wild. " ' Us ' ? thank you ! "

"Then to live with me."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 351

The words made her friend jump. "You
give me up? You break with me forever?
You turn me into the street?"

Maisie was dazzled by the enumeration,
but she bore bravely up. " Those, it seems
to me, are the things you do to me. "

Mrs. Wix made little of her valor. "I
can promise you that, whatever I do, I shall
never let you out of my sight ! You ask me
why it 's immorality when you 've seen with
your own eyes that Sir Claude has felt it to
be so to that dire extent that, rather than
make you face the shame of it, he has for
months kept away from you altogether? Is
it any more difficult to see that the first time
he tries to do his duty he washes his hands
of her ? — takes you straight away from
her?"

Maisie turned this over, but more for ap-
parent consideration than from any impulse
to yield too easily. "Yes, I see what you
mean. But at that time they weren't free."
She felt Mrs. Wix rear up again at the
offensive word, but she succeeded in touch-
ing her with a remonstrant hand. " I don't
think you know how free they 've become."

" I know, I believe, at least as much as
you do!"

352 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Maisie hesitated. " About the Countess ? "

"Your father's — temptress?" Mrs. Wix
gave her a sidelong squint. "Perfectly.
She pays him ! "

"Oh, does she?" At this the child's
countenance fell : it seemed to give a reason
for papa's behavior and place it in a more
favorable light. She wished to be just. " I
don't say she 's not generous. She was so
to me."

"How, to you?"

" She gave me a lot of money. "

Mrs. Wix stared. "And, pray, what did
you do with the lot of money? "

"I gave it to Mrs. Beale."

"And what did Mrs. Beale do with it?"

"She sent it back."

" To the Countess ? Gammon ! " said Mrs.
Wix. She disposed of that plea as effectu-
ally as Susan Ash.

"Well, I don't care!" Maisie replied.
"What I mean is that you don't know about
the rest."

"The rest? What rest?"

Maisie wondered how she could best put
it. " Papa kept me there an hour. "

"I do know — Sir Claude told me. Mrs.
Beale had told him."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 353

Maisie looked incredulity. " How could
she ? — when I did n't speak of it ! "

Mrs. Wixwas mystified. " Speak of what ? "

"Why, of her being so frightful."

"The Countess? Of course she 's fright-
ful," Mrs. Wix declared. After a moment
she added : "That 's why she pays him."

Maisie pondered. "It's the best thing
about her then — if she gives him as much
as she gave me. "

a Well, it 's not the best thing about him!
Or rather perhaps it is too!" Mrs. Wix
subjoined.

"But she's awful — really and truly,"
Maisie went on.

Mrs. Wix arrested her. "You needn't
go into details ! " It was visibly at variance
with this injunction that she yet inquired:
" How does that make it any better? "

"Their living with me? Why, for the
Countess — and for her whiskers ! — he has
put me off on them. I understood him,"
Maisie profoundly said.

"I hope then he understood you. It's
more than I do!" Mrs. Wix admitted.

That was a real challenge to be plainer,
and our young lady immediately became so.
" I mean it is n't a crime. n
23

354 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"Why, then, did Sir Claude steal you
away ? "

"He didn't steal — he only borrowed me.
I knew it wasn't for long," Maisie auda-
ciously professed.

"You must allow me to reply to that/*
cried Mrs. Wix, " that you knew nothing of
the sort, and that you rather basely failed to
back me up last night when you pretended
so plump that you did ! You hoped in fact
exactly as much as I did, and as in my sense-
less passion I even hope now, that this may
be the beginning of better things."

Oh yes, Mrs. Wix was indeed, for the first
time, sharp; so that there at last stirred in
our heroine the sense not so much of being
proved disingenuous as of being precisely
accused of the meanness that had brought
everything down on her through her very
desire to shake herself clear of it. She sud-
denly felt herself swell with a passion of
protest. "I never, never hoped I wasn't
going again to see Mrs. Beale! I didn't, I
did n't, I did n't ! " she repeated. Mrs. Wix
bounced about with a force of rejoinder of
which she also felt that she must anticipate
the concussion, and which, though the good
lady was evidently charged to the brim, hung

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 355

fire long enough to give time for an aggrava-
tion. "She's beautiful, and I love her! I
love her, and she 's beautiful ! "

"And I'm hideous, and you hate me?"
Mrs. Wix fixed her a moment, then caught
herself up. "I won't embitter you by abso-
lutely accusing you of that; though, as for
my being hideous, it's hardly the first time
I 've been told so ! I know it so well that
even if I haven't whiskers — have I? — I
dare say there are other ways in which the
Countess is a Venus to me ! My pretensions
must therefore seem to you monstrous —
which comes to the same thing as your not
liking me. But do you mean to go so far as
to tell me that you want to live with them
in their sin ? "

" You know what I want, you know what
I want ! " Maisie spoke with the quaver of
rising tears.

" Yes, I do ; you want me to be as bad as
yourself! Well, I won't. There! Mrs.
Beale 's as bad as your father!" Mrs. Wix
went on.

"She's not — she's not!" her pupil al-
most shrieked in retort.

"You mean because Sir Claude at least
has beauty and wit and grace ? But he pays,

356 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

just as the Countess pays!" Mrs. Wix, who
now rose as she spoke, fairly revealed a
latent cynicism.

It raised Maisie also to her feet ; her com-
panion had walked off a few steps and paused.
The two looked at each other as they had
never looked, and Mrs. Wix seemed to flaunt
there in her finery. " Then does n't he pay
you too ? " her unhappy charge demanded.

At this she bounded in her place. " Oh,
you incredible little waif ! " She brought it
out with a wail of violence ; after which, with
another convulsion, she marched straight
away.

Maisie dropped back on the bench and
burst into sobs.

XXVI

NOTHING so dreadful, of course, could be
final or even, for many minutes, provisional :
they rushed together again too soon for
either to feel that either had kept it up, and
though they went home in silence it was
with a vivid perception for Maisie that her
companion's hand had closed upon her.
That hand had shown, altogether, these

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 357

twenty-four hours, a new capacity for clos-
ing, and one of the truths the child could
least resist was that a certain greatness had
now come to Mrs. Wix. The case was in-
deed that the quality of her motive surpassed
the sharpness of her angles ; both the combi-
nation and the singularity of which things,
when in the afternoon they used the carriage,
Maisie could borrow from the contemplative
hush of their grandeur the freedom to feel
to the utmost. She still bore the mark of
the tone in which her friend had thrown out
that threat of never losing sight of her.
This friend had been converted, in short,
from feebleness to force; and it was the
light of her present power that showed from
how far she had come. The threat in ques-
tion, sharply exultant, might have produced
defiance; but before anything so ugly could
happen another process had insidiously fore-
stalled it. The moment at which this pro-
cess had begun to mature was that of Mrs.
Wix's breaking out with a dignity attuned
to their own apartments and with an advan-
tage now measurably gained. They had
ordered coffee, after luncheon, in the spirit
of Sir Claude's provision, and it was served
to them while they awaited their equipage

358 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

in the white and gold salon. It was flanked
moreover with a couple of liqueurs, and
Maisie felt that Sir Claude could scarce
have been taken more at his word had it
been followed by anecdotes and cigarettes.
The influence of these luxuries was at any
rate in the air; it seemed to her, while she
tiptoed at the chimney -glass, pulling on her
gloves and, with a motion of her head, shak-
ing a feather into place, to have had some-
thing to do with Mrs. Wix's suddenly say-
ing: "Haven't you really and truly any
moral sense? "

Maisie was aware that her answer, though
it brought her down to her heels, was vague
even to imbecility and that this was the first
time she had appeared to practise with Mrs.
Wix an intellectual inaptitude to meet her
— the infirmity to which she had owed so
much success with papa and mamma. The
appearance did her injustice, for it was not
less through her candor than through her
playfellow's pressure that, after this, the
idea of a moral sense mainly colored their
intercourse. She began, the poor child,
with scarcely knowing what it was; but it
proved something that, with scarce an out-
ward sign save her surrender to the swing

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 359

of the carriage, she could, before they came
back from their drive, strike up a sort of
acquaintance with. The beauty of the day
only deepened, and the splendor of the after-
noon sea, and the haze of the far headlands,
and the taste of the sweet air. It was the
coachman indeed who, smiling and crack-
ing his whip, turning in his place, pointing
to invisible objects and uttering unintel-
ligible sounds — all, our tourists recognized,
strict features of a social order principally
devoted to language; it was this charming
character who made their excursion fall so
much short that their return left them still a
stretch of the long daylight and an hour
that, at his obliging suggestion, they spent
on foot on the shining sands. Maisie had
seen the plage the day before with Sir
Claude, but that was a reason the more for
showing on the spot to Mrs. Wix, that it
was, as she said, another of the places on
her list, and of the things of which she
knew the French name. The bathers, so
late, were absent, and the tide was low ; the
sea-pools twinkled in the sunset, and there
were dry places, as well, where they could
sit again and admire and expatiate: a cir-
cumstance that, while they listened to the

360 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

lap of the waves, gave Mrs. Wix a fresh ful-
crum for her challenge. "Have you abso-
lutely none at all ? "

She had no need now, as to the question
itself at least, to be specific; that, on the
other hand, was the eventual result of their
quiet conjoined apprehension of the thing
that — well, yes, since they must face it —
Maisie absolutely and appallingly had so
little of. This marked more particularly the
moment of the child's perceiving that her
friend had risen to a level which might — •
till superseded, at all events — pass almost
for sublime. Nothing more remarkable had
taken place in the first heat of her own depar-
ture, no phenomenon of perception more in-
scrutable by our rough method, than her
vision, the rest of that Boulogne day, of the
manner in which she figured. I so despair
of tracing her steps that I must crudely
give you my word for its being, from this
time on, a picture literally present to her.
Mrs. Wix saw her as a little person knowing
so extraordinarily much that, for the account
to be taken of it, what she still did n't know
would be ridiculous if it had n't been embar-
rassing. Mrs. Wix was in truth more than
ever qualified to meet embarrassment ; I am

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 361

not sure that Maisie had not even a dim dis-
cernment of the queer law of her own life
that made her educate to that sort of pro-
ficiency those elders with whom she was
concerned. She promoted, as it were, their
development : nothing could have been more
marked, for instance, than her success in
promoting Mrs. Beale's. She judged that
if her whole history, for Mrs. Wix, had
been the successive stages of her knowledge,
so the very climax of the concatenation
would, in the same view, be the stage at
which the knowledge should overflow. As
she was condemned to know more and more,
how could it logically stop before she should
know Most ? It came to her, in fact, as they
sat there on the sands, that she was dis-
tinctly on the road to know Everything. She
had not had governesses for nothing: what
in the world had she ever done but learn
and learn and learn? She looked at the pink
sky with a placid foreboding that she soon
would have learnt All. They lingered in the
flushed air till at last it turned to gray and
she seemed fairly to receive new information
from every brush of the breeze. By the time
they moved homeward it was as if, for Mrs.
Wix, this inevitability had become a long,

362 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

tense cord, twitched by a nervous hand, on
which the counted pearls of intelligence
were to be neatly strung.

In the evening, upstairs, they had another
strange session, as to which Maisie could
not afterwards have told you whether it was
bang in the middle or quite at the beginning
that her companion sounded with fresh
emphasis the note of the moral sense. What
mattered was merely that she did exclaim,
and again, as at first appeared, most dis-
connectedly: "God help me, it does seem
to peep out ! " Oh, the queer confusions
that had wooed it at last to such peeping ! —
none so queer, however, as the words of woe,
and it might verily be said of rage, in which
the poor lady bewailed the tragic end of her
own rich ignorance. There was a point at
which she seized the child and hugged her
as close as in the old days of partings and
returns ; at which she was visibly at a loss
how to make up to such a victim for such
contaminations; appealing, as to what she
had done and was doing, in bewilderment,
in explanation, in supplication, for reassur-
ance, for pardon and even, outright, for pity.

" I don't know what I 've said to you, my
own; I don't know what I 'm saying or what

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 363

the turn you 've given my life has rendered
me, heaven forgive me, capable of saying.
Have I lost all delicacy, all decency, all
measure of how far and how bad — ? It
seems to me, mostly, that I have, though
I 'm the last of whom you ever would have
thought it. I 've just done it for you, pre-
cious — not to lose you, which would have
been worst of all : so that I 've had to pay
with my own innocence — if you do laugh !

— for clinging to you and keeping you.
Don't let me pay for nothing; don't let me
have been thrust for nothing into such hor-
rors and such shames. I never knew any-
thing about them, and I never wanted to
know ! Now I know too much, too much ! "

— the poor woman lamented and groaned.
" I know so much that, with hearing such
talk, I ask myself where I am ; and, with
uttering it too, which is worse, say to myself
that I 'm far, too far, from where I started !
I ask myself what I should have thought,
with my lost one, if I had heard myself cross
the line ! There are lines I 've crossed with
you that I should have fancied I had come to
a pretty pass — !" She gasped at the mere
supposition. " I 've gone from one thing to
another, and all for the real love of you ; and

364 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

now what would any one say — I mean any
one but them — if they were to hear the way
I go on ? I 've had to keep up with you,
haven't I? — and therefore what could I do
less than look to you to keep up with me?
But it 's not them that are the worst — by
which I mean to say it 's not him: it 's your
dreadfully base papa and the one person in
the world whom he could have found, I do
believe — and she's not the Countess, duck!
— wickeder than himself. While they were
about it, at any rate, since they were ruining
you, they might have done it so as to spare
an honest woman. Then I should n't have
had to do — whatever it is that 's the worst:
throw up at you the badness you have n't
taken in, or find my advantage in the vile-
ness you have ! What I did lose patience at
this morning was at how it was without your
seeming to condemn — for you didn't, you
remember! — you yet did seem to know.
Thank God in his mercy, at last, if you do ! "
The night, this time, was warm, and one
of the windows stood open to the small bal-
cony, over the rail of which, on coming up
from dinner, Maisie had hung a long time
in the enjoyment of the chatter, the lights,
the life of the quay made brilliant by the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 365

season and the hour. Mrs. Wix's require-
ments had drawn her in from this posture and
Mrs. Wix's embrace had detained her, even
though, midway in the outpouring, her con-
fusion and sympathy had permitted, or rather
had positively helped, her to disengage her-
self. But the casement was still wide, the
spectacle, the pleasure was still there, and
from her place in the room, which, with
its polished floor and its panels of elegance,
was lighted from without more than from
within, the child could still take account of
them. She appeared to watch and listen;
after which she answered Mrs. Wix with a
question. " If I do know — ? "

"If you do condemn." The correction
was made with some austerity.

It had the effect of causing Maisie to
heave a vague sigh of oppression and then,
after an instant and as if under cover of
this ambiguity, to pass out again upon the
balcony. She hung again over the rail ; she
felt the summer night; she dropped down
into the manners of France. There was a
cafe below the hotel, before which, with
little chairs and tables, people sat on a
space enclosed by plants in tubs; and the
impression was enriched by the flash of the

366 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

white aprons of waiters and the music of a
man and a woman who, from beyond the
precinct, sent up the strum of a guitar and
the drawl of a song about "amour." Maisie
knew what "amour" meant too, and won-
dered if Mrs. Wix did : Mrs. Wix remained
within, as still as a mouse and perhaps not
reached by the performance. After a while,
but not till the musicians had ceased and
begun to circulate with a little plate, her
pupil came back to her. "Is it a crime?"
Maisie then asked.

Mrs. Wix was as prompt as if she had
been crouching in a lair. " Branded by the
Bible."

"Well, he won't commit a crime."

Mrs. Wix looked at her gloomily. " He 's
committing one now."

"Now?"

"In being with her."

Maisie had it on her tongue's end to re-
turn once more : "But now he's free;" she
remembered, however, in time, that one of
the things she had known for the last entire
hour was that this made no difference.
After that, and as if to turn the right way,
she was on the point of a blind dash, a weak
reversion to the reminder that it might make

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 367

a difference, might diminish the crime, for
Mrs. Beale; till such a reflection was in its
order also quashed by the visibility in Mrs.
Wix's face of the collapse produced by her
inference from her pupil's manner that, after
all her pains, her pupil did n't even yet ade-
quately understand. Never so much as
when just so confronted had Maisie wanted
to understand, and all her thought for a
minute centred in the effort to come out
with something which should be a disproof
of her simplicity. "Just trust me, dear:
that 's all ! " — she came out finally with that ;
and it was perhaps a good sign of her action
that, with a long, impartial moan, Mrs. Wix
floated her to bed. .

There was no letter the next morning from
Sir Claude — which Mrs. Wix let out that
she deemed the worst of omens; yet it was
just for the quieter communion they so got
from him that when, after the coffee and
rolls which made them more foreign than
ever, it came to going forth for fresh drafts
upon his credit, they wandered again up the
hill to the rampart instead of plunging into
distraction with the crowd on the sands or
into the sea with the semi-nude bathers.
They gazed once more at their gilded Virgin ;

368 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

they sank once more upon their battered
bench; they felt once more their distance
from the Regent's Park. At last Mrs. Wix
became definite about their friend's silence.
" He is afraid of her ! She has forbidden
him to write. " The fact of his fear Maisie
already knew; but her companion's mention
of it had at this moment two unexpected
results. The first was her wondering, in
dumb remonstrance, how Mrs. Wix, with a
devotion not, after all, inferior to her own,
could put into such an allusion such a grim-
ness of derision; the second was that she
found herself suddenly drop into a deeper
view of it. She too had been afraid, as we
have seen, of the people of whom Sir Claude
was afraid, and by that law she had had her
due measure of latent apprehension of Mrs.
Beale. What occurred at present, however,
was that, whereas this sympathy appeared
vain as for him, the ground of it loomed
dimly as a reason for selfish alarm. That
uneasiness had not carried her far before
Mrs. Wix spoke again, and with an abrupt-
ness so great as almost to seem irrelevant.
" Has it never occurred to you to be jealous
of her?"

It never had, in the least ; yet the words

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 369

were scarce in the air before Maisie had
jumped at them. She held them well, she
looked at them hard; at last she brought
out with an assurance which there was no
one, alas, but herself to admire: "Well,
yes — since you ask me." She hesitated,
then continued : " Lots of times ! "

Mrs. Wix glared an instant askance ; such
approval as her look expressed was not
wholly unqualified. It expressed, at any
rate, something that presumably had to do
with her saying once more : " Yes, he 's
afraid of her."

Maisie heard, and it had afresh its effect
on her, even through the blur of the atten-
tion now required by the possibility of that
idea of jealousy — a possibility created only
by her feeling that she had thus found the
way to show she was not simple. It stuck
out of Mrs. Wix that this lady still believed
her moral sense to be interested and feigned ;
so what could be such a gage of her sincerity
as a peep of the most restless of the pas-
sions? Such a revelation would baffle dis-
couragement, and discouragement was in
fact so baffled that, helped in some degree
by the mere intensity of their need to hope,
which also, according to its nature, sprang
24

370 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

from the dark portent of the absent letter,
the real pitch of their morning was reached
by the note, not of mutual scrutiny, but of
unprecedented frankness. There were brood-
ings indeed and silences, and Maisie sank
deeper into the vision that for her friend
she was, at the most, superficial, and that
also, positively, she was the more so the
more she tried to appear complete. Was
the sum of all knowledge only to know how
little, in this presence, one would ever
reach it? The answer to that question
luckily lost itself in the brightness suffus-
ing the scene as soon as Maisie had thrown
out, in regard to Mrs. Beale, such a remark
as she had never dreamed she should live to
make. "If I thought she was unkind to
him — I don't know what I should do ! "

Mrs. Wix dropped one of her squints ; she
even confirmed it by a wild grunt. " I know
what /should!"

Maisie, at this, felt that she lagged.
"Well, I can think of one thing."

Mrs. Wix more directly challenged her.
"What is it, then?"

Maisie met her expression as if it were a
game with forfeits for winking. "I'd kill
her ! " That, at least, she hoped as she

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 371

looked away, would guarantee her moral
sense! She looked away, but her compan-
ion said nothing for so long that she at last
turned her head again. Then she saw the
straighteners all blurred with tears which,
after a little, seemed to have sprung from
her own eyes. There were tears in fact on
both sides of the spectacles, and they were
even so thick that it was presently all Maisie
could do to make out through them that
slowly, finally, Mrs. Wix put forth a hand.
It was the material pressure that settled that,
and even, at the end of some minutes, more
things besides. It settled in its own way
one thing in particular, which, though often
between them, heaven knows, hovered round
and hung over, was yet to be established
without the shadow of an attenuating smile.
Oh, there was no gleam of levity, as little
of humor as of deprecation, in the long
time they now sat together, or in the way in
which, at some unmeasured point of it, Mrs.
Wix became distinct enough for her own dig-
nity and yet not loud enough for the snoozing
old women.

" I adore him. I adore him."

Maisie took it well in ; so well that in a
moment more she would have answered, pro-

372 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

foundly, "So do I!" But before that
moment passed something took place that
brought other words to her lips; nothing
more, very possibly, than the closer con-
sciousness, in her hand, of the significance
of Mrs. Wix's. Their hands remained
linked in unutterable sign of their union,
and what Maisie at last said was, simply and
serenely : " Oh, I know ! "

Their hands were so linked and their
union was so confirmed that it took the far,
deep note of a bell, borne to them on the
summer air, to call them back to a sense of
hours and proprieties. They had touched
bottom and melted together, but they gave a.
start at last; the bell was the voice of the
inn, and the inn was the image of luncheon.
They should be late for it ; they got up ; and
their quickened step, on the return, had
something of the swing of confidence. When
they reached the hotel the table d hdte had
begun: this was clear from the threshold,
clear from the absence, in the hall and on
the stairs, of the "personnel," as Mrs. Wix
said — she had picked that\x$ — all collected
in the dining-room. They mounted to their
apartments for a brush before the glass, and
it was Maisie who, in passing and from a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 373

vain impulse, threw open the white and gold
door. She was thus first to utter the sound
that brought Mrs. Wix almost on the top of
her, as, by the other accident, it would have
brought her on the top of Mrs. Wix. It had
at any rate the effect of leaving them
bunched together in a strained stare at their
new situation. This situation had put on,
in a flash, the bright form of Mrs. Beale:
she stood there in her hat and her jacket,
amid bags and shawls, smiling and holding
out her arms. If she had just arrived it was
a different figure from either of the two that,
for their benefit, wan and tottering and none
too soon to save life, the Channel had re-
cently disgorged. She was as lovely as the
day that had brought her over, as fresh as
the luck and the health that attended her;
it came to Maisie on the spot that she was
more beautiful than she had ever been.
All this was too quick to count, but there
was still time in it to give the child the sense
of what had kindled the light. That leaped
out of the open arms, the open eyes, the open
mouth; it leaped out with Mrs. Beale's loud
cry at her : "I'm free, I 'm free ! "

374 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

XXVII

THE greatest wonder of all was the way the
announcement, so far as could be judged,
was launched predominantly at Mrs. Wix,
who, as if from sudden failure of strength,
sank into a chair while Maisie surrendered
to the visitor's embrace. As soon as the
child was liberated she met, with profundity,
Mrs. Wix's stupefaction and actually was
able to see that, while in a manner sustain-
ing the encounter, her face yet seemed with
intensity to say: "Now, for God's sake,
don't crow ' I told you so ! ' ' Maisie was
somehow on the spot aware of an absence of
disposition to crow; it had taken her but an
extra minute to arrive at such a quick sur-
vey of the objects surrounding Mrs. Beale as
showed that among them was no appurte-
nance of Sir Claude's. She knew his
dressing-bag now — oh, with the fondest
knowledge ! — and there was an instant dur-
ing which its not being there was a stroke of
the worst news. She was yet to learn what
it could be to recognize in some perception
of a gap the sign of extinction, and therefore

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 375

remained unaware that this momentary pang
was a foretaste of the experience of death.
It passed in a flash, of course, with Mrs.
Beale's brightness and with her own instant
appeal. " You ' ve come alone ? "

" Without Sir Claude ? " Strangely, Mrs.
Beale looked even brighter. "Yes; in the
eagerness to get at you. You abominable
little villain ! " — and her stepmother, laugh-
ing clear, administered to her cheek a pat
that was partly a pinch. "What were you
up to and what did you take me for? But
I 'm glad to be abroad, and, after all, it 's
you who have shown me the way. I might n't,
without you, have been able to come; that
is, so soon. Well, here I am, at any rate,
and in a moment more I should have begun
to worry about you. This will do very
well " — she was good-natured about the
place and presently added that it was nice
and Frenchy. But with a rosier glow she
made again her great point : " I 'm free, I 'm
free ! " Maisie made, on her side, her own :
she carried back her gaze to Mrs. Wix, whom
amazement continued to hold; she drew,
afresh, her old friend's attention to the
superior way she did n't take that up. What
she did take up, the next minute, was the

376 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

question of Sir Claude. "Where is he?
Won't he come?"

Mrs. Beale's consideration of this oscil-
lated, with a smile, between the two expec-
tancies with which she was flanked : it was
conspicuous, it was extraordinary, her un-
blinking acceptance of Mrs. Wix, a miracle
of which Maisie had even now begun to read
a reflection in that lady's long visage.
" He '11 come, but we must make him ! " she
gayly brought forth.

" Make him ? " Maisie echoed.

"We must give him time; we must play
our cards. "

"But he promised us, awfully," Maisie
replied.

"My dear child, he has promised me
awfully; I mean lots of things, and not, in
every case, kept his promise to the letter."
Mrs. Beale's good humor insisted on taking
for granted Mrs. Wix's, to whom her atten-
tion had suddenly grown prodigious. " I
dare say he has done the same with you and
not always come to time. But he makes it
up in his own way; and it isn't as if we
did n't know exactly what he is. There 's one
thing he is," she went on, "which makes
everything else only a question, for us, of

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 377

tact. " They scarce had time to wonder what
this was before it was, as they might have
said right there. "He's as free as I am ! "

"Yes, I know," said Maisie; as if, how-
ever, independently weighing the value of
that. She really weighed also the oddity of
her stepmother's treating it as news to her>
who had been the first person, literally, to
whom Sir Claude had mentioned it. For a
few seconds, as if with the sound of it in her
ears, she stood with him again, in memory
and in the twilight, in the hotel garden at
Folkestone.

Anything Mrs. Beale overlooked was, she
indeed divined, but the effect of an exalta-
tion of high spirits, a tendency to soar that
showed even when she dropped — still quite
impartially — almost to the confidential.
" Well, then — we 've only to wait. He
can't do without us long. I 'm sure, Mrs.
Wix, he can't do without you ! He's devoted
to you ; he has told me so much about you.
The extent I count on you, you know, count
on you to help me ! " — was an extent that
even all her radiance could n't express.
What it couldn't express, quite as much as
what it could, made at any rate, every in-
stant, her presence, and even her famous

378 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

freedom, loom larger; and it was this mighty
mass that once more led her companions,
bewildered and scattered, to exchange with
each other, as through a thickening veil,
confused and ineffectual signs. They clung
together, at least, on the common ground of
unpreparedness, and Maisie watched with-
out relief the havoc of wonder in Mrs. Wix.
It had reduced her to perfect impotence, and,
but that gloom was black upon her, she sat
as if fascinated by Mrs. Beale's high style.
It had plunged her into a long deep hush ;
for what had happened was the thing she
had least allowed for and before which the
particular rigor she had worked up could
only grow limp and sick. Sir Claude was to
have reappeared with his accomplice or with-
out her; never, never his accomplice without
him. Mrs. Beale had gained, apparently,
by this time, an advantage she could pursue :
she looked at the droll, dumb figure with
jesting reproach. "You really won't shake
hands with me? Never mind; you'll come
round!" She put the matter to no test,
going on immediately and, instead of offer-
ing her hand, making it, with a pretty gesture
that her head bent to, reach a long pin that
played a part in her back hair. " Are hats

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 379

worn at luncheon ? If you 're as hungry as I
am we must go right down. "

Mrs. Wix stuck fast, but she met the
question in a voice her pupil scarce recog-
nized. "I wear mine."

Mrs. Beale, swallowing at one glance her
bran-new bravery, which she appeared at
once to refer to its origin and to follow in
its flights, accepted this as conclusive.
" Oh, but I 've not such a beauty ! " Then
she turned rejoicingly to Maisie. " I 've
got a beauty for you, my dear. "

"A beauty?"

" A love of a hat — in my luggage. I re-
membered that " — she nodded at the object
on her stepdaughter's head — "and I've
brought you one with a peacock's breast.
It's the most gorgeous blue!"

It was too strange, this talking with her
there already not about Sir Claude, but about
peacocks — too strange for the child to have
the presence of mind to thank her. But the
felicity in which she had arrived was so
proof against everything that Maisie felt
more and more the depth of the purpose that
must underlie it. She had a vague sense of
its being abysmal, the spirit with which Mrs.
Beale carried off the awkwardness, in the

380 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

white and gold salon, of such a want of
breath and of welcome. Mrs. Wix was more
breathless than ever; the embarrassment of
Mrs. Beale's isolation was as nothing to the
embarrassment of her grace. The percep-
tion of this dilemma was the germ, on the
child's part, of a new question altogether.
What if, with this indulgence — ? But the
idea lost itself in something too frightened
for hope and too conjectured for fear; and
while everything went by leaps and bounds
one of the waiters stood at the door to
remind them that the table d'hdte was half
over.

" Had you come up to wash hands ? " Mrs.
Beale hereupon asked them. " Go and do it
quickly, and I '11 be with you; they've put
my boxes in that nice room — it was Sir
Claude's. Trust him," she laughed, "to
have a good one ! " The door of a neigh-
boring room stood open, and now, from the
threshold, addressing herself again to Mrs.
Wix, she sent a note flying that gave the very
key of what, as she would have said, she
was up to. "Dear lady, please attend to
my daughter."

She was up to a change of deportment so
complete that it represented — oh, for offices

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 381

still honorably subordinate, if not too ex-
plicitly menial — an absolute coercion, an
interested clutch, of the old woman's re-
spectability. There was response, for
Maisie's mind, I may say at once, in the
jump of that respectability to its feet; it
was itself capable of one of the leaps, one
of the bounds just mentioned, and it carried
its charge, with this momentum and while
Mrs. Beale popped into Sir Claude's cham-
ber, straight away to where, at the end of the
passage, pupil and governess were quartered.
The greatest stride of all, for that matter,
was that within a few seconds the pupil had,
in another relation, been converted into a
daughter. Maisie's eyes were still following
it when, after the rush, with the door almost
slammed and no thought of soap and towels,
the pair stood face to face. Mrs. Wix, in
this position, was the first to gasp a sound.
" Can it ever be that she has one ? "

Maisie felt still more bewildered. " One
what ? "

"Why, moral sense."

They spoke as if you might have two, but
Mrs. Wix looked as if it were not altogether
a happy thought, and Maisie didn't see how
even an affirmative from her own lips would

382 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

clear up what had become most of a mys-
tery. It was to this she sprang pretty
straight. " Is she my mother now ? "

It was a point as to which an horrific
glimpse of the responsibility of an opinion
appeared to affect Mrs. Wix like a blow in
the stomach. She had evidently never
thought of it; but she could think and re-
bound. "If she is, he's equally your
father."

Maisie, however, thought further. " Then
my father and my mother — ! "

But she had already faltered and Mrs.
Wix had already glared back. " Ought to
live together? Don't begin it again!" She
turned away with a groan, to reach the
washing-stand, and Maisie could by this
time recognize with a certain ease that that
way, verily, madness did lie. Mrs. Wix
gave a great untidy splash, but the next
instant had faced round. " She has taken a
new line."

"She was nice to you," Maisie concurred.

" What she thinks so — * Go and dress
the young lady. ' But it 's something ! " she
panted. Then she thought out the rest.
" If he won't have her, why she '11
/ be the one."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 383

" The one to keep me abroad ? "

" The one to give you a home. " Mrs. Wix
saw further; she mastered all the portents.
" Oh, she 's cruelly clever ! It 's not a moral
sense." She reached her climax. "It's a
game ! "

"A game?"

" Not to lose him. She has sacrificed him
— to her duty. "

"Then won't he come? " Maisie pleaded.

Mrs. Wix made no answer; her vision
absorbed her. "He has fought. But she
has won."

"Then won't he come?" the child
repeated.

Mrs. Wix hesitated. "Yes, hang him!"
She had never been so profane.

For all Maisie minded ! " Soon — to-
morrow? "

" Too soon — whenever. Indecently soon. "

" But then we shall be together ! " the child
went on. It made Mrs. Wix look at her as
if in exasperation; but nothing had time to
come before she precipitated: "Together
with you ! " The air of criticism continued,
but took voice only in her companion's
bidding her wash herself and come down.
The silence of quick ablutions fell upon

384 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

them, presently broken, however, by one of
Maisie's sudden reversions. "Mercy, isn't
she handsome ? "

Mrs. Wix had finished; she waited.
"She'll attract attention." They were
rapid, and it would have been noticed that
the shock the beauty had given them acted,
incongruously, as a positive spur to their
preparations for rejoining her. She had,
none the less, when they returned to the
sitting-room, already descended; the open
door of her room showed it empty, and the
chambermaid explained. Here again they
were delayed by another sharp thought of
Mrs. Wix's. "But what will she live on
meanwhile? "

Maisie stopped short. "Till Sir Claude
comes ? "

It was nothing to the violence with which
her friend had been arrested. "Who '11 pay
the bills?"

Maisie thought. " Can't she ? "

" She ? She has n't a penny. "

The child wondered. " But did n't papa ? "

" Leave her a fortune ? " Mrs. Wix would
have appeared to speak of papa as dead had
she not immediately added : " Why, he lives
on other women ! "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 385

Oh yes, Maisie remembered. "Then
can't he send — ?" She faltered again;
even to herself it sounded queer.

"Some of their money to his wife?"
Mrs. Wix gave a laugh still stranger than
the weird suggestion. " I dare say she 'd
take it!"

They hurried on again ; yet again, on the
stairs, Maisie pulled up. "Well, if she
had stopped in England ! " she threw out.

Mrs. Wix considered. "And he had
come over instead ? "

"Yes, as we expected." Maisie launched
her speculation. "What, then, would she
have lived on? "

Mrs. Wix hung fire but an instant.
" On other men ! " And she marched down-
stairs.

XXVIII

MRS. BEALE, at table between the pair,
plainly attracted the attention Mrs. Wix
had foretold. No other lady present was
nearly so handsome, nor did the beauty of
any other accommodate itself with such art
to the homage it produced. She talked
25

386 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

mainly to her other neighbor, and that left
Maisie leisure both to note the manner in
which eyes were riveted and nudges inter-
changed, and to lose herself in the meanings
that, dimly, as yet, and disconnectedly, but
with a vividness that fed apprehension, she
could begin to read into her stepmother's
independent move. Mrs. Wix had helped
her by talking of a game ; it was a connec-
tion in which the move could put on a stra-
tegic air. Her notions of diplomacy were
thin, but it was a kind of cold diplomatic
shoulder and an elbow of more than usual
point that, temporarily at least, were pre-
sented to her by the averted inclination of
Mrs. Beale's head. There was a phrase
familiar to Maisie, so often was it used by
this lady to express the idea of one's getting
what one wanted : one got it, Mrs. Beale
always said — she, at all events, always got
it or proposed to get it — by " making
love." She was at present making love,
singular as it appeared, to Mrs. Wix, and
her young friend's mind had, as yet, never
moved in such freedom as on finding itself
face to face with the question of what she
now wanted to get. This period of the
omelette aux rognons and the poulet sautf,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 387

while her sole surviving parent fairly chat-
tered to her governess, left Maisie rather
wondering if her governess would hold out.
It was strange, but she became on the spot
quite as interested in Mrs. Wix's moral
sense as Mrs. Wix could possibly be in hers :
it had risen before her so pressingly that
there was something new for Mrs. Wix to
resist. Resisting Mrs. Beale herself prom-
ised at this rate to become a very different
business from resisting Sir Claude's view of
her. More might come of what had hap-
pened— whatever it was — than Maisie felt
she could have expected. She put it together
with a suspicion that, had she ever in her
life had a sovereign changed, would have
resembled an impression, baffled by the want
of arithmetic, that her change was wrong —
she groped about in it that she had perhaps
become the victim of a violent substitution.
A victim was what she should surely be if
the issue between her step-parents had been
settled by Mrs. Beale' s saying: "Well, if
she can live with but one of us alone, with
which in the world should it be but me ? "
That answer was far from what, for days,
she had nursed herself in, and the desolation
of it was deepened by the absence of any-

388 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

thing from Sir Claude to show he had not
had to take it as triumphant. Had not Mrs.
Beale, upstairs, as good as given out that
she had quitted him with the snap of a ten-
sion, left him, in London, after some strug-
gle as a sequel to which her own advent
represented that she had practically sacri-
ficed him ? Maisie assisted in fancy at the
episode in the Regent's Park, finding ele-
ments almost of terror in the suggestion that
Sir Claude had not had fair play. They
drew something, as she sat there, even from
the pride of an association with such beauty
as Mrs. Beale's; and the child quite forgot
that, though the sacrifice of Mrs. Beale her-
self was a solution she had not invented, she
would probably have seen Sir Claude embark
upon it without a direct remonstrance.

What her stepmother had clearly now
promised herself to wring from Mrs. Wix
was an assent to the great modification, the
change, as smart as a juggler's trick, in the
interest of which nothing so much mattered
as the new convenience of Mrs. Beale.
Maisie could positively seize the moral that
her elbow seemed to point in ribs thinly
defended — the moral of its not mattering a
straw which of the step-parents was the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 389

guardian. The essence of the question was
that a girl wasn't a boy: if Maisie had been
a trousered thing Sir Claude would have
been welcome. As the case stood he had
simply dropped out, and Mrs. Wix would
henceforth find herself in the employ of the
right person. These arguments had really
fallen, for our young lady, into their place
at the very touch of that tone in which she
had heard her new title declared. She was
still, as a result of so many parents, a daugh-
ter to somebody, even after papa and mamma
were to all intents dead. If her father's
wife and her mother's husband, by the
operation of a natural, or, for all she knew,
a legal rule, were in the shoes of their de-
funct partners, then Mrs. Beale's was exactly
as defunct as Sir Claude's and her shoes the
very pair to which, in " Farange v. Farange
& Others," the divorce-court had given pri-
ority. The subject of that celebrated settle-
ment saw the rest of the day really filled
out with the pomp of all that Mrs. Beale
assumed. The assumption rounded itself
there between her entertainers, flourished
in a way that left them, in their bottomless
element, scarce a free pair of eyes to ex-
change signals. It struck Maisie even a

390 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

little that there was a rope or two Mrs. Wix
might have thrown out if she would, or a
rocket or two she might have sent up.
They had, at any rate, never been so long
together without communion or telegraphy,
and their companion kept them apart by
simply keeping them with her. From this
situation they saw the grandeur of their
intenser relation to her pass and pass like
an endless procession. It was a day of lively
movement and of talk, on Mrs. Beale's part,
so brilliant and overflowing as to represent
music and banners. She took them out
with her, promptly, to walk and to drive,
and even, towards night, sketched a plan for
carrying them to the Etablissement, where,
for only a franc apiece, they would listen
to a concert of celebrities. It reminded
Maisie, the plan, of the side-shows at Earl's
Court, and the franc sounded brighter than
the shillings which had at that time failed ;
yet this too, like the other, was a frustrated
hope: the francs failed like the shillings
and the side-shows had set an example to the
concert. The fitablissement, in short,
melted away, and it was little wonder that
a lady who from the moment of her arrival
had been so gallantly in the breach should

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 391

confess herself at last done up. Maisie
could appreciate her fatigue; the day had
not passed without such an observer's dis-
covering that she was excited and even men-
tally comparing her state to that of the
breakers after a gale. It had blown hard in
London, and she would take time to sub-
side. It was of the condition known to the
child by report as that of talking against
time that her decision, her spirit, her humor,
which had never dropped, now gave the
impression.

She too was delighted with foreign man-
ners; but her daughter's opportunities of
explaining them to her were unexpectedly
forestalled by her tone of large acquaintance
with them. One of the things that nipped
in the bud all response to her volubility was
Maisie's surprised retreat before the fact that
Continental life was what she had been al-
most brought up on. It was Mrs. Beale, dis-
concertingly, who began to explain it to her
friends; it was she who, wherever they
turned, was the interpreter, the historian and
the guide. She was full of reference to her
early travels — at the age of eighteen : she
had at that period made, with a distin-
guished Dutch family, a stay on the Lake of

392 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Geneva. Maisie, in the old days, had been
regaled with anecdotes of these adventures,
but they had become phantasmal, and the
heroine's quite showy exemption from be-
wilderment at Boulogne, her acuteness on
some of the very subjects on which Maisie
had been acute to Mrs. Wix, were a high
note of the mastery, of the advantage with
which she had arrived. It was all a part of
the wind in her sails and of the weight with
which her daughter was now to feel her
hand. The effect of it on Maisie was to add
already the burden of time to her separation
from Sir Claude. It might have lasted for
days ; it was as if, with their main agitation
transferred thus to France and with neither
mamma, now, nor Mrs. Beale, nor Mrs. Wix,
nor herself at his side, he must be fearfully
alone in England. Hour after hour she felt
as if she were waiting; yet she could n't have
said exactly for what. There were moments
when Mrs. Beale' s flow of talk might have
bubbled on the very edge of it; at others
this talk was a mere rattle to smother a
knock. At no part of the crisis had the
rattle so public a purpose as when, instead
of letting Maisie go with Mrs. Wix to pre-
pare for dinner, she pushed her — with a

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 393

push at last incontestably maternal — straight
into the room inherited from Sir Claude.
She titivated her little charge with her own
brisk hands; then she brought out: "I'm
going to divorce your father."

This was so different from anything Maisie
had expected that it took some time to reach
her mind. She was aware meanwhile that
she must look rather wan. "To marry Sir
Claude ? "

Mrs. Beale rewarded her with a kiss.
" It 's sweet to hear you put it so."

This was a tribute, but it left Maisie bal-
ancing for an objection. " How can you
when he's married?"

"He isn't — practically. He's free."

" Free to marry ? "

"Free, first, to divorce his own fiend."

The benefit that these last days she had
felt she owed a certain person left Maisie
for the moment so ill-prepared for recogniz-
ing this label that she hesitated long enough
to risk : " Mamma ? "

" She is n't your mamma any longer," Mrs.
Beale replied. " Sir Claude has paid her
money to cease to be. " Then as if remem-
bering how little, to the child, a pecuniary
transaction must represent: "She lets him

394 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

off supporting her if he '11 let her off support-
ing you. "

Mrs. Beale appeared, however, to have done
injustice to her daughter's financial grasp.
"And support me himself ?" Maisie asked.

" Take the whole burden and never let her
hear of you again. It 's a regular signed
contract."

" Why, that 's lovely of her ! " Maisie cried.

" It 's not so lovely, my dear, but that he '11
get his divorce."

Maisie was briefly silent; after which,
" No — he won't get it, " she said. Then she
added still more boldly: "And you won't
get yours."

Mrs. Beale, who was at the dressing-glass,
turned round with amusement and surprise.
" How do you know that ? "

"Oh, I know!" said Maisie.

"From Mrs. Wix?"

Maisie hesitated; then, after an instant,
was determined by Mrs. Beale' s absence of
anger, which struck her the more as she had
felt that she must take her courage in her
hands. "From Mrs. Wix," she admitted.

Mrs. Beale, at the glass again, made play
with a powder-puff. "My own sweet, she 's
mistaken ! " was all she said.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 395

There was a certain force in the very
amenity of this, but our young lady reflected
long enough to remember that it was not the
answer Sir Claude himself had made. This
recollection, nevertheless, failed to prevent
her saying: "Do you mean, then, that he
won't come till he has got it? "

Mrs. Beale gave a last touch; she was
ready; she stood there in all her elegance.
" I mean, my dear, that it 's because he has n't
got it that I left him."

This opened out a view that stretched
further than Maisie could reach. She
turned away from it, but she spoke before
they went out again. "Do you like Mrs.
Wix now?"

"Why, my chick, I was just going to ask
you if you think she has come at all to like
poor me! "

Maisie thought, at this hint; but unsuc-
cessfully. "I have n't the least idea. But
I '11 find out."

" Do ! " said Mrs. Beale, rustling out with
her and as if it would be a particular favor.

The child tried, promptly, at bed-time,
relieved now of the fear that their visitor
would wish to separate her for the night
from her attendant. " Have you held out ? "

396 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

— she began as soon as the doors at the
end of the passage were again closed on
them.

Mrs. Wix looked hard at the flame of the
candle. " Held out — ?"

" Why, she has been making love to you.
Has she won you over ? "

Mrs. Wix transferred the straighteners to
her pupil's face. " Over to what ? "

"To her keeping me instead."

"Instead of Sir Claude?" Mrs. Wix was
distinctly gaining time.

"Yes; who else? — since it's not instead
aiyat,"

Mrs. Wix colored at this lucidity. " Yes

— that is what she means. "

"Well, do you like it? " Maisie asked.

She actually had to wait, for, oh, her
friend was embarrassed ! " My opposition
to the connection — theirs — would then,
naturally, to some extent fall. She has
treated me to-day with peculiar considera-
tion; not that I don't know very well where
she got the pattern of it ! But of course, "
Mrs. Wix hastened to add, " I should n't
like her as the one nearly so well as him."

" ' Nearly so well ' ! " Maisie echoed : " I
should hope indeed not." She spoke with

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 397

a firmness at which she was the first to be
amazed. " I thought you ' adored ' him."

"I do," Mrs. Wix sturdily allowed.

" Then have you suddenly begun to adore
her too ? "

Mrs. Wix, instead of directly answering,
only blinked in support of her sturdiness.
"My dear, in what a tone you ask that!
You 're coming out."

"Why shouldn't I? You've come out.
Mrs. Beale has come out. We each have
our turn ! " And Maisie threw off the most
extraordinary little laugh that had ever
passed her young lips.

There passed Mrs. Wix's indeed the next
moment a sound that more than matched it.
" You 're most remarkable ! " she neighed.

Her pupil faltered a few seconds. "I
think you 've done a great deal to make
me so."

"Very true — I have." She dropped to
humility, as if she recalled her so recent
self -arraignment.

"Would you accept her, then? That's
what I ask," said Maisie.

" As a substitute ? " Mrs. Wix turned
it over; she met again the child's eyes.
"She has literally almost fawned upon me."

398 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" She has n't fawned upon him. She
hasn't even been kind to him."

Mrs. Wix looked as if she had now an
advantage. "Then do you propose to
'kill' her?"

"You don't answer my question," Maisie
persisted. "I want to know if you accept
her."

Mrs. Wix continued to dodge. " I want
to know if you do ! "

Everything in the child's person at this
announced that it was easy to know.
"Not for a moment."

"Not the two now?" Mrs. Wix had
caught on — she flushed with it. " Only
him alone?"

"Him alone or nobody."

"Not even me?" cried Mrs. Wix.

Maisie looked at her a moment, then
began to undress. " Oh, you 're nobody ! "

XXIX

SHE slept beyond her allowance, instantly
recognizing lateness in the way her eyes
opened to Mrs. Wix, erect, completely
dressed, more dressed than ever, and gazing

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 399

at her from the centre of the room. The
next thing she was sitting very high, wide
awake with the fear of the hours of " abroad "
that she might have lost. Mrs. Wix looked
as if the day already made itself felt, and
the process of catching up with it began for
Maisie with hearing her distinctly say:
" My poor dear, he has come ! "

" Sir Claude ? " Maisie, clearing the little
bed- rug with the width of her spring, felt
the polished floor under her bare feet.

"He crossed in the night; he got in
early." Mrs. Wix's head jerked stiffly back-
ward. "He's there."

" And you 've seen him ? "

"No. He's there — he's there!" Mrs.
Wix repeated. Her voice came out with a
queer extinction that was not a voluntary
drop, and she trembled so that it added to
their common emotion. Visibly pale, they
gazed at each other.

"Isn't it too beautiful!" Maisie panted
back at her; an appeal to which, however,
she was not ready with a response. The
term Maisie had used was a flash of diplo-
macy— to prevent, at any rate, Mrs. Wix's
using another. To that degree it was suc-
cessful; there was only an appeal, strange

400 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

and mute, in the white old face, which
produced the effect of a want of decision
greater than could by any stretch of opti-
mism have been associated with her attitude
toward what had happened. For Maisie
herself indeed what had happened was,
oddly, as she could feel, less of a simple
rapture than any arrival or return of the
same supreme friend had ever been before.
What had become overnight, what had be-
come while she slept, of the comfortable
faculty of gladness? She tried to wake it
up a little wider by talking, by rejoicing,
by plunging into water and into clothes,
and she made out that it was ten o'clock,
but also that Mrs. Wix had not yet break-
fasted. The day before, at nine, they had
had together a cafe complet in their sitting-
room. Mrs. Wix, on her side, had evidently
also a refuge to seek. She sought it in
checking the precipitation of some of her
pupil's present steps, in recalling to her,
with an approach to sternness, that of all
such preparations ablutions should be the
most thorough, and in throwing even a
certain reprobation on the idea of hurrying
into clothes for the sake of a mere step-
father. She took her in fact, with a sort

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 401

of silent insistence, in hand; she reduced
the process to sequences more definite than
any it had known since the days of Moddle.
Whatever it might be that was now, with
a difference, attached to Sir Claude's pres-
ence, was still, after all, compatible for our
young lady with the instinct of dressing to
see him with almost untidy haste. Mrs.
Wix meanwhile, luckily, was not wholly
directed to repression. " He 's there — he 's
there ! " she had said over several times.
It was her answer to every invitation to men-
tion how long she had been up and her
motive for respecting so rigidly the slumber
of her companion. It formed for some
minutes her only account of the where-
abouts of the others and her reason for not
having yet seen them, as well as of the
possibility of their presently being found in
the salon.

" He 's there — he 's there ! " she declared
once more, as she made, on the child, with
an almost invidious tug, a strained under-
garment "meet."

" Do you mean he 's in the salon ? " Maisic
asked again.

"He's with her," Mrs. Wix desolately
said. " He 's with her," she reiterated.
26

402 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" Do you mean in her own room ? " Maisie
continued.

She waited an instant. " God knows ! "

Maisie wondered a little why, or how,
God should know; this, however, delayed
but an instant her bringing out: "Well,
won't she go back?"

" Go back ? Never ! "

"She '11 stay all the same?"

"All the more."

"Then won't Sir Claude go?" Maisie
asked.

"Go back — if she .doesn't?" Mrs. Wix
appeared to give this question the benefit
of a minute's thought. "Why should he
have come — only to go back ? "

Maisie produced an ingenious solution.
"To make her go. To take her."

Mrs. Wix met it without a concession.
"If he can make her go so easily, why
should he have let her come?"

Maisie considered. "Oh, just to see me.
She has a right."

" Yes — she has a right. "

"She's my mother!" Maisie tentatively
tittered.

" Yes — she 's your mother. "

"Besides," Maisie went on, "he didn't

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 403

let her come. He doesn't like her coming;
and if he doesn't like it — "

Mrs. Wix took her up. " He must lump
it — that's what he must do! Your mother
was right about him — I mean your real one.
He has no strength. No — none at all. "
She seemed more profoundly to muse. " He
might have had some even with her — I
mean with her ladyship. He 's just a poor,
sunk slave, " she asserted with sudden energy.

Maisie wondered again. " A slave ? "

"To his passions."

She continued to wonder and even to be
impressed; after which she went on: "But
how do you know he '11 stay? "

" Because he likes us ! " — and Mrs. Wix,
with her emphasis of the word, whirled her
charge round again to deal with posterior
hooks. She had positively never shaken
her so.

It was as if she quite shook something out
of her. "But how will that help him if we
— in spite of his affection ! — don't stay? "

" Do you mean if we go off and leave him
with her? " — Mrs. Wix put the question to
the back of her pupil's head. "It wont
help him. It will be his ruin. He '11 have
got nothing. He'll have lost everything.

404 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

It will be his utter destruction, for he 's
certain after a while to loathe her."

"Then when he loathes her" — it was
astonishing how she caught the idea — " he '11
just come right after us ! " Maisie announced.

"Never."

"Never?"

" She '11 keep him. She '11 hold him for-
ever."

Maisie doubted. "When he 'loathes'
her?"

"That won't matter. She won't loathe
him. People don't !" Mrs. Wix brought up.

"Some do. Mamma does," Maisie con-
tended.

"Mamma does not!" It was startling —
her friend contradicted her flat. " She
loves him — she adores him. A woman
knows." Mrs. Wix spoke not only as if
Maisie were not a woman, but as if she
would never be one. " / know ! " she cried.

"Then why on earth has she left him? "

Mrs. Wix hesitated. "He hates her.
Don't stoop so — lift up your hair. You
know how I 'm affected toward him," she
added, with dignity; "but you must also
know that I see clear."

Maisie, all this time, was trying hard to

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 405

do likewise. "Then, if she has left him
for that, why should n't Mrs. Beale leave
him?"

" Because she 's not such a fool ! "

" Not such a fool as mamma? "

" Precisely — if you will have it. Does it
look like her leaving him ? " Mrs. Wix in-
quired. She hung fire again ; then she went
on with more intensity: "Do you want to
know really and truly why? So that she
may be his wretchedness and his punish-
ment."

" His punishment ? " — this was more than
as yet Maisie could quite accept. " For
what?"

"For everything. That's what will hap-
pen: he'll be tied to her forever. She
won't mind in the least his hating her, and
she won't hate him back. She '11 only hate
us."

" Us ? " the child faintly echoed.

" She '11 hate you."

"Me? Why, I brought them together!"
Maisie resentfully cried.

"You brought them together." There
was a completeness in Mrs. Wix's assent.
" Yes ; it was a pretty job. Sit down. " She
began to brush her pupil's hair and, as she

4o6 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

took up the mass of it with some force of
hand, went on with a sharp recall: "Your
mother adored him at first — it might have
lasted. But he began too soon with Mrs.
Beale. As you say," she pursued with a
free application of the brush, "you brought
them together."

" I brought them together " — Maisie was
ready to reaffirm it. She felt, none the
less, for a moment, at the bottom of a hole ;
then she seemed to see a way out. " But I
didn't bring mamma together." She just
faltered.

" With all those gentlemen ? " — Mrs. Wix
pulled her up. "No; it isn't quite so bad
as that. "

" I only said to the Captain " — Maisie
had the quick memory of it — " that I hoped
he at least (he was awfully nice !) would love
her and keep her."

"And even that wasn't much harm,"
threw in Mrs. Wix.

"It wasn't much good," Maisie was
obliged to recognize. "She can't bear
him — not even a mite. She told me at
Folkestone. "

Mrs. Wix suppressed a gasp ; then after a
bridling instant during which she might

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 407

have appeared to deflect with difficulty from
her odd consideration of Ida's wrongs: "He
was a nice sort of person for her to talk to
you about ! "

" Oh, I like him ! " Maisie promptly re-
joined; and at this, with an inarticulate
sound and an inconsequence still more
marked, her companion bent over and dealt
her, on the cheek, a rapid peck which had
the apparent intention of a kiss.

"Well, if her ladyship doesn't agree with
you, what does it only prove?" Mrs. Wix
demanded in conclusion. " It proves that
she's fond of Sir Claude!"

Maisie, in the light of some of the evi-
dence, reflected on that till her hair was
finished; but when she at last started up
she gave a sign of no very close embrace
of it. She grasped, at this moment, Mrs.
Wix's arm. "He must have got his
divorce ! "

" Since day before yesterday? Don't talk
trash ! "

This was spoken with an impatience
which left the child nothing to reply;
whereupon she sought her defence in a com-
pletely different relation to the fact. " Well,
I knew he would come ! "

4o8 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"So did I; but not in twenty-four hours.
I gave him a few days ! " Mrs. Wix wailed.

Maisie, whom she had now released,
looked at her with interest. " How many
did she give him ? "

Mrs. Wix faced her a moment; then as
if with a bewildered sniff : " You had better
ask her!" But she had no sooner uttered
the words than she caught herself up. " Lord
of mercy, how we talk ! "

Maisie felt that, however they talked, she
must see him, but she said nothing more for
a time, a time during which she conscien-
tiously finished dressing and Mrs. Wix also
kept silent. It was as if they each had
almost too much to think of, and even as if
the child had the sense that her friend was
watching her and seeing if she herself were
watched. At last Mrs. Wix turned to the
window and stood — sightlessly, as Maisie
could guess — looking away. Then our
young lady, before the glass, gave the su-
preme shake. "Well, I 'm ready. And now
to see him ! "

Mrs. Wix turned round, seemingly without
having heard her. "It's tremendously
grave." There were slow, still tears behind
the straighteners.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 409

"It is — it is." Maisie spoke as one
now dressed quite up to the occasion; as
one indeed who, with the last touch, had
put on the judgment-cap. " I must see him
immediately."

" How can you see him if he does n't send
for you ? "

"Why can't I go and find him? "

"Because you don't know where he is."

"Can't I just look in the salon?" That
still seemed simple to Maisie.

Mrs. Wix, however, instantly cut it off.
"I wouldn't have you look in the salon for
all the world ! " Then she explained a little :
"The salon isn't ours now."

"Ours?"

"Yours and mine. It 's theirs."

"Theirs?" Maisie, with her stare, con-
tinued to echo. "You mean they want to
keep us out ? "

Mrs. Wix faltered ; she sank into a chair
and, as Maisie had often enough seen her do
before, covered her face with her hands.
"They ought to, at least. The situation's
too monstrous ! "

Maisie stood there a moment — she looked
about the room. " I '11 go to him — I' 11 find
him."

410 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"/won't! I won't go near them!" cried
Mrs. Wix.

"Then I'll see him alone." The child
spied what she had been looking for — she
possessed herself of her hat. " Perhaps I '11
take him out!" And, with decision, she
quitted the room.

When she entered the salon it was empty ;
but at the sound of the opened door some
one stirred on the balcony and Sir Claude,
stepping straight in, stood before her. He
was in light, fresh clothes and wore a straw
hat with a bright ribbon; these things, be-
sides striking her in themselves as the very
promise of the grandest of grand tours, gave
him a certain radiance and, as it were, a
tropical ease ; but such an effect only marked
rather more his having stopped short and, for
a longer minute than had ever, at such a
juncture, elapsed, not opened his arms to
her. His pause made her pause and enabled
her to reflect that he must have been up
some time, for there were no traces of break-
fast, and that, though it was so late, he had
rather markedly not caused her to be called
to him. Had Mrs. Wix been right about
their forfeiture of the salon? Was it all his
now, all his and Mrs. Beale's? Such an

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 411

idea, at the rate her small thoughts throbbed,
could only remind her of the way in which
what had been hers hitherto was what was
exactly most Mrs. Beale's and his. It was
strange to be standing there and greeting
him across a gulf, for he had by this time
spoken, smiled, said : " My dear child — my
dear child ! " but without coming any nearer.
In a flash she saw that he was different —
more so than he knew or designed. The
next minute indeed it was as if he caught
an impression from her face: this made him
hold out his hand. Then they met, he
kissed her, he laughed, she thought he even
blushed ; something of his affection rang out
as usual. " Here I am, you see, again — as
I promised you."

It was not as he had promised them — • he
had not promised them Mrs. Beale; but
Maisie said nothing about that. What she
said was simply: "I knew you had come.
Mrs. Wixtoldme."

" Oh yes. And where is she ? "

" In her room. She got me up — she
dressed me."

Sir Claude looked at her up and down ; a
sweetness of mockery that she particularly
loved came out in his face whenever he did

412 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

that, and it was not wanting now. He raised
his eyebrows and his arms to play at admira-
tion; he was evidently, after all, disposed to
be gay. " Got you up ? I should think so !
She has dressed you most beautifully. Is n't
she coming ? "

Maisie wondered if she had better tell.
" She said not. "

" Does n't she want to see a poor devil ? "

She looked about, under the vibration of
the way he described himself, and her eyes
rested on the door of the room he had pre-
viously occupied. " Is Mrs. Beale in there ? "

Sir Claude looked blankly at the same
object. " I have n't the least idea ! "

"You haven't seen her?"

"Not the tip of her nose."

Maisie thought; there settled on her, in
the light of his beautiful smiling eyes, the
faintest, purest, coldest conviction that he
was not telling the truth. " She has n't
welcomed you? "

" Not by a single sign. "

"Then where is she?"

Sir Claude laughed; he seemed both
amused and surprised at the point she made
of it. "I give it up."

" Does n't she know you 've come ? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 413

He laughed again. " Perhaps she does n't
care ! "

Maisie, with an inspiration, pounced on
his arm. " Has she gone ? "

He met her eyes, and then she could see
that his own were really much graver than
his manner. " Gone ? " She had flown to
the door, but before she could raise her hand
to knock he was beside her and had caught
it. " Let her be. I don't care about her.
I want to see you."

Maisie fell back with him. "Then she
hasn't gone? "

He still looked as if it were a joke; but
the more she saw of him the more she could
make out that he was troubled. "It
wouldn't be like her!"

She stood looking up at him. " Did you
want her to come ? "

"How can you suppose — ?" He put it
to her candidly. " We had an immense row
over it."

" Do you mean you 've quarrelled ? "

Sir Claude hesitated. "What has she
told you?"

"That I 'm hers as much as yours. That
she represents papa. "

His gaze struck away through the open

4H WHAT MAISIE KNEW

window and up to the sky ; she could hear
him rattle in his trousers' pocket his money
or his keys. " Yes — that 's what she keeps
saying. " It gave him for a moment an air
that was almost helpless.

"You say you don't care about her,"
Maisie went on. "Do you mean you've
quarrelled ? "

"We do nothing in life but quarrel."

He rose before her, as he said this, so soft
and fair, so rich, in spite of what might
worry him, in restored familiarities, that it
gave a bright blur to the meaning — to what
would otherwise, perhaps, have been the
tangible promise — of the words. " Oh, your
quarrels ! " she exclaimed with discourage-
ment.

" I assure you hers are quite fearful ! " he
laughed.

"I don't speak of hers. I speak of
yours. "

"Ah, don't do it till I 've had my coffee!
You're growing up clever," he added.
Then he said : " I suppose you 've break-
fasted?"

" Oh no — I 've had nothing."

" Nothing in your room " — he was all com-
punction. "My dear old man! — we'll

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 415

breakfast then together." He had one of
his happy thoughts. "I say — we'll go
out."

"That was just what I hoped. I've
brought my hat."

"You are clever! We'll go to a cafe"."
Maisie was already at the door; he glanced
round the room. "A moment — my stick."
But there appeared to be no stick. "No
matter; I left it — oh!" He remembered,
with an odd drop, and came out.

" You left it in London ? " she asked as
they went downstairs.

" Yes — in London : fancy ! "

"You were in such a hurry to come,"
Maisie explained.

He had his arm round her. "That must
have been the reason." Half way down
he stopped short again, slapping his leg.
"And poor Mrs. Wix!"

Maisie' s face just showed a shadow. " Do
you want her to come ? "

" Dear, no — I want to see you alone. "

" That 's the way I want to see you / " she
replied. " Like before. "

" Like before ! " he gayly echoed. " But
I mean has she had her coffee? "

"No, nothing."

416 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"Then I '11 send it up to her. Madame ! "
He had already, at the foot of the stair,
called out to the stout patronne, a lady who
turned to him, from the bustling, breezy
hall, a countenance covered with fresh
matutinal powder and a bosom as capacious
as the velvet shelf of a chimney-piece, over
which her round white face, framed in its
golden frizzle, might have figured as a showy
clock. He ordered, with particular recom-
mendations, Mrs. Wix's repast, and it was
a charm to hear his easy, brilliant French :
even his companion's ignorance could meas-
ure the perfection of it. The patronne,
rubbing her hands and breaking in with
high, swift notes, as into a florid duet, went
with him to the street, and while they
talked a moment longer Maisie remembered
what Mrs. Wix had said about every one's
liking him. It came out enough through the
morning powder, it came out enough in the
heaving bosom, how the landlady liked him.
He had evidently ordered something lovely
for Mrs. Wix. " Et bien soigne, ri est-ce-pas ? "

" Soyez tranquille " — the patronne beamed
upon him. " Et pour Madame ? "

"Madame?" he echoed — it just pulled
him up a little.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 417

" Rien encore? "

" Rien encore. Come, Maisie." She hur-
ried along with him, but on the way to the
cafe" he said nothing.

XXX

AFTER they were seated there it was differ-
ent : the place was not below the hotel, but
farther along the quay; with wide, clear
windows and a floor sprinkled with bran in
a manner that gave it for visitors a little
of the added charm of a circus. They had
pretty much to themselves the painted spaces
and the red plush benches ; these were shared
by a few scattered gentlemen who picked
teeth, with facial contortions, behind small
bare tables, and by an old personage in par-
ticular, a very old personage with a red
ribbon in his buttonhole, whose manner of
soaking buttered rolls in coffee and then
disposing of them in the little that was left
of the interval between his nose and chin
might at a less anxious hour have cast upon
Maisie an almost envious spell. They too
had their cafe* au lait and their buttered
rolls, determined by Sir Claude's asking her
27

4i8 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

if she could with that light aid wait till
the hour of dejeuner. His allusion to this
meal gave her, in the shaded, sprinkled
coolness, the scene, as she vaguely felt, of
a sort of ordered, mirrored license, the
haunt of those — the irregular, like herself
— who went to bed or who rose too late,
something to think over while she watched
the white-aproned waiter perform as nimbly
with plates and saucers as a certain conjurer
her friend had, in London, taken her to a
music-hall to see. Sir Claude had presently
begun to talk again, to tell her how London
had looked, and how long he had felt him-
self, on either side, to have been absent ; all
about Susan Ash too, and the amusement
as well as the difficulty he had had with
her; then all about his return journey and
the Channel in the night and the crowd of
people coming over and the way there were
always too many one knew. He spoke of
other matters besides, especially of what she
must tell him of the occupations, while he
was away, of Mrs. Wix and her pupil.
Had n't they had the good time he had
promised? — had he exaggerated a bit the
arrangements made for their pleasure?
Maisie had something — not all there was —

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 419

to say of his success and of their gratitude:
she had a complication of thought that grew
every minute, grew with the consciousness
that she had never seen him in this particular
state in which he had been given back.

Mrs. Wix had once said — it was once or
fifty times; once was enough for Maisie,
but more was not too much — that he was
wonderfully various. Well, he was cer-
tainly so, to the child's mind, on the present
occasion; he was much more various than
he was anything else. The fact that they
were together in a shop, at a nice little
intimate table, as they had so often been
in London, only, besides, made greater the
difference of what they were together about.
This difference was in his face, in his voice,
in every look he gave her and every move-
ment he made. They were not the looks
and the movements he really wanted to
show, and she could feel as well that they
were not those she herself wanted. She had
seen him nervous, she had seen every one
she had come in contact with nervous, but
she had never seen him so nervous as this.
Little by little it gave her a settled terror,
a terror that partook of the coldness she had
felt just before at the hotel, to find herself,

420 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

on his answer about Mrs. Beale, disbelieve
him. She seemed to see at present, to
touch across the table, as if by laying her
hand on it, what he had meant when he con-
fessed on those several occasions to fear.
Why was such a man so often afraid? It
must have begun to come to her now that
there was one thing just such a man above
all could be afraid of. He could be afraid
of himself. His fear, at all events, was
there; his fear was sweet to her, beautiful
and tender to her, was having coffee and
buttered rolls and talk and laughter that
were no talk and laughter at all, with her;
his fear was in his jesting, postponing,
perverting voice; it was in just this make-
believe way he had brought her out to imitate
the old London playtimes, to imitate indeed
a relation that had wholly changed, a rela-
tion that she had, with her very eyes, seen
in the act of change when^ the day before,
in the salon, Mrs. Beale rose suddenly
before her. She rose before her, for that
matter, now, and even before their refresh-
ment appeared Maisie arrived at the straight
question for which, on their entrance, his
first word had given opportunity. "Are we
going to have dejeimev with Mrs. Beale ? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 421

His reply was anything but straight.
"You and I?"

Maisie sat back in her chair. " Mrs. Wix
and me."

Sir Claude also shifted. "That's an in-
quiry, my dear child, that Mrs. Beale herself
must answer." Yes, he had shifted; but
abruptly, after a moment during which
something seemed to hang there between
them and, as it heavily swayed, just fan
them with the air of its motion, she felt
that the whole thing was upon them. " Do
you mind," he broke out, "my asking you
what Mrs. Wix has said to you ? "

"Said to me?"

"This day or two, while I was away."

" Do you mean about you and Mrs. Beale ? "

Sir Claude, resting on his elbows, fixed
his eyes a moment on the white marble be-
neath them. "No; I think we had a good
deal of that — did n't we ? — before I left you.
It seems to me we had it pretty well all out.
I mean about yourself, about your — don't
you know? — associating with us, as I might
say, and staying on with us. While you
were alone with our friend what did she
say?"

Maisie felt the weight of the question;

422 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

it made her waver and wonder, while her
companion's eyes remained bent. "Noth-
ing," she rejoined at last.

He looked up in surprise. " Nothing? "

"Nothing," Maisie repeated; on which
an interruption descended in the form of a
tray bearing the preparations for their
breakfast.

These preparations were as amusing as
everything else; the waiter poured their
coffee from a vessel like a watering-pot and
then made it froth with the curved stream of
hot milk that dropped from the height of his
raised arm ; but the two looked across at each
other, through the whole play of French pleas-
antness, with a gravity that had now ceased
to dissemble. Sir Claude sent the waiter off
again for something and then took up her
answer. " Has n't she tried to affect you ? "

Face to face with him thus it seemed to
Maisie that she had tried so little as to be
scarce worth mentioning; again therefore,
an instant, she shut herself up. Presently
she found her middle course. " Mrs. Beale
likes her now; and there 's one thing I 've
found out — a great thing. Mrs. Wix enjoys
her being so kind. She was tremendously
kind all day yesterday."

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 423

"I see. And what did she do?" Sir
Claude asked.

Maisie was now busy with her breakfast,
and her kind host attacked his own; so
that it was all in form at least even more
than their old sociability. " Everything she
could think of. She was as nice to her as
you are," the child said. " She talked to her
all day."

"And what did she say to her? "

"Oh, I don't know." Maisie was a little
bewildered with his pressing her so for
knowledge; it didn't fit into the degree of
intimacy with Mrs. Beale that Mrs. Wix had
so denounced and that, according to that
lady, had now brought him back in bondage.
Was n't he more aware than his stepdaughter
of what would be done by the person to
whom he was bound? In a moment, how-
ever, she added: "She made love to her."

Sir Claude looked at her harder, and it
was clearly something in her tone that made
him quickly say: "You don't mind my ask-
ing you, do you ? "

"Not at all; only I should think you'd
know better than I."

"What Mrs. Beale did yesterday?"

She thought he colored a trifle; but

424 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

almost simultaneously with that impression
she found herself answering : " Yes — if you
have seen her."

He broke into the loudest of laughs.
"Why, my dear boy, I told you just now
I 've absolutely not. I say, don't you be-
lieve me?"

There was something she was already so
afraid of that it covered up other fears.
"Didn't you come back to see her?" she
inquired in a moment. "Didn't you come
back because you always want to so much ? "

He received her inquiry as he had received
her doubt — with an extraordinary absence
of resentment. " I can imagine, of course,
why you think that. But it doesn't explain
my doing what I have. It was, as I said to
you just now at the inn, really and truly you
I wanted to see. "

She felt an instant as she used to feel
when, in the back-garden at her mother's,
she took from him the highest push of a
swing — high, high, high — that he had
had put there for her pleasure and that
had finally broken down under the weight
and the extravagant patronage of the cook.
"Well, that's beautiful. But to see me,
you mean, and go away again ? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 425

" My going away again is just the point.
I can't tell yet — it all depends."

" On Mrs. Beale ? " Maisie asked. " She
won't go away." He finished emptying his
coffee-cup and then when he had put it
aside leaned back in his chair and let her
see that he smiled at her. This only added
to her idea that he was in trouble, that he
was turning somehow in his pain and trying
different things. He continued to smile,
and she presently went on: "Don't you
know that?"

" Yes, I may as well confess to you that as
much as that I do know. She won't go away.
She '11 stay."

"She'll stay. She'll stay," Maisie re-
peated.

"Just so. Won't you have some more
coffee?"

"Yes, please."

" And another buttered roll ? "

"Yes, please."

He signed to the hovering waiter, who
arrived with the shining spout of plenty in
either hand and with the friendliest interest
in mademoiselle. " Les tartines sent /d."
Their cups were replenished, and while
he watched almost musingly the bubbles in

426 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

the fragrant mixture, "Just so — just so,"
Sir Claude said again and again. " It's
awfully awkward ! " he exclaimed when the
waiter had gone.

"That she won't go?"

« Well — everything ! Well, well, well ! "
But he pulled himself together; he began
again to eat. "I came back to ask you
something. That 's what I came back for."

" I know what you want to ask me," Maisie
said.

" Are you very sure ? "

"I'm almost very. "

"Well, then, risk it. You mustn't make
me risk everything. "

She was struck with the force of this.
"You want to know if I should be happy
with them"

" With those two ladies only ? No, no, old
man : vous-n 'y-$tes pas. So now — there ! "
Sir Claude laughed.

"Well then, what is it?"

The next minute, instead of telling her
what it was, he laid his hand across the
table on her own and held her as if under
the prompting of a thought. "Mrs. Wix
would stay with her?"

" Without you ? Oh yes — now. "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 427

"On account, as you just intimated, of
Mrs. Beale's changed manner? "

Maisie, with her sense of responsibility,
focussed both Mrs. Beale's changed manner
and Mrs. Wix's human weakness. "I think
she talked her over. "

Sir Claude thought a moment. "Ah,
poor dear!"

"Do you mean Mrs. Beale?"

"Oh no — Mrs. Wix."

" She likes being talked over — treated
like any one else. Oh, she likes great
politeness," Maisie expatiated. "It affects
her very much."

Sir Claude, to her surprise, demurred a
little to this. "Very much — up to a cer-
tain point."

" Oh, up to any point ! " Maisie returned
with emphasis.

"Well, haven't I been polite to her? "

" Lovely — and she perfectly worships
you."

"Then, my dear child, why can't she let
me alone ? " And this time Sir Claude un-
mistakably blushed. Before Maisie, how-
ever, could answer his question, which would
indeed have taken her long, he went on in
another tone : " Mrs. Beale thinks she has

428 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

probably quite broken her down. But she
hasn't."

Though he spoke as if he were sure,
Maisie was strong in the impression she
had just uttered and that she now again pro-
duced. " She has talked her over. "

" Ah yes ; over to herself, but not over to
me."

Oh, she could n't bear to hear him say
that! "To you? Don't you really believe
how she loves you ? "

Sir Claude hesitated. "Of course, I
know she 's wonderful."

" She 's just every bit as fond of you as /
am," said Maisie. "She told me so yester-
day."

"Ah, then," he promptly exclaimed, "she
has tried to affect you! I don't love her,
don't you see? I do her perfect justice," he
pursued, "but I mean I don't love her as I
do you, and I 'm sure you would n't seriously
expect it. She 's not my daughter — come,
old chap! She's not even my mother,
though I dare say it would have been better
for me if she had been. I '11 do for her
what I 'd do for my mother, but I won't do
more." His real excitement broke out in a
need to explain and justify himself, though

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 429

he kept trying to correct and conceal it with
laughs and mouthfuls and other vain famil-
iarities. Suddenly he broke off, wiping
his moustache with sharp pulls and coming
back to Mrs. Beale. " Did she try to talk
you over ? "

" No — to me she said very little. Very
little indeed," Maisie continued.

Sir Claude seemed struck with this. " She
was only sweet to Mrs. Wix ? "

'* As sweet as sugar ! " cried Maisie.

He looked amused at her comparison, but
he did n't contest it; he uttered, on the con-
trary, in an assenting way, a little inarticu-
late sound. " I know what she can be. But
much good may it have done her! Mrs.
Wix won't come round. That 's what makes
it so fearfully awkward."

Maisie knew it was fearfully awkward ; she
had known this now, she felt, for some time,
and there was something else it more press-
ingly concerned her to learn. " What is it
that you meant you came over to ask me? "

"Well," said Sir Claude, "I was just
going to say. Let me tell you it wil] sur-
prise you." She had finished breakfast now
and she sat back in her chair again ; she
waited in silence to hear. He had pushed

430 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

the things before him a little way and had
his elbows on the table. This time she was
convinced she knew what was coming, and
once more, for the crash, as with Mrs. Wix
lately in their room, she held her breath and
drew together her eyes. He was going to
say that she must give him up. He looked
hard at her again ; then he made his effort.
" Should you see your way to let her go ? "

She was bewildered. " To let who — ? "

" Mrs. Wix, simply. I put it at the worst.
Should you see your way to sacrifice her?
Of course I know what I 'm asking."

Maisie's eyes opened wide again; this
was so different from what she had expected.
"And stay with you alone? "

He gave another push to his coffee-cup.
"With me and Mrs. Beale. Of course it
would be rather rum ; but everything in our
whole story is rather rum, you know. What
is more unusual than for any one to be given
up, like you, by her parents? "

" Oh, nothing is more unusual than that ! "
Maisie concurred, relieved at the contact of
a proposition as to which concurrence could
have lucidity.

" Of course it would be quite unconven-
tional," Sir Claude went on — "I mean the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 431

little household we three should make to-
gether; but things have got beyond that,
don't you see? They got beyond that long
ago. We shall stay abroad at any rate — it 's
ever so much easier, and it 's our affair and
nobody else's: it's no one's business but
ours on all the blessed earth. I don't say
that for Mrs. Wix, poor dear — I do her
absolute justice. I respect her; I see what
she means ; she has done me a lot of good.
But there are the facts. There they are,
simply. And here am I, and here are you.
And she won't come round. She 's right,
from her point of view. I 'm talking to you
in the most extraordinary way — I 'm always
talking to you in the most extraordinary way,
ain't I? One would think you were about
sixty, and that I — I don't know what any
one would think / am. Unless a beastly
cad ! " he suggested. " I 've been awfully
worried, and this is what it has come to.
You 've done us the most tremendous good,
and you '11 do it still and always, don't you
see? We can't let you go — you're every-
thing. There are the facts, as I say. She
is your mother now, Mrs. Beale, by what
has happened, and I, in the same way, I 'm
your father. No one can contradict that, and

432 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

we can't get out of it. My idea would be a
nice little place — somewhere in the south

— where she and you would be together and
as good as any one else. And I should be
as good too, don't you see? for I should n't
live with you, but I should be close to you

— just round the corner, and it would be just
the same. My idea would be that it should
all be perfectly open and frank. Honi soit
qui mat y pense, don't you know? You're
the best thing — you and what we can do for
you — that either of us has ever known : " he
came back to that. "When I say to her
' Give her up, come, ' she lets me have it
bang in the face. ' Give her up yourself ! '
It's the same old vicious circle; and when
I say vicious I don't mean a pun or a what-
d'ye-call-'em. Mrs. Wix is the obstacle —
I mean, you know, if she has affected you.
She has affected me, and yet here I am. I
never was in such a tight place : please be-
lieve it 's only that that makes me put it to
you as I do. My dear child, isn't that — to
put it so — just the way out of it ? That
came to me yesterday, in London, after Mrs.
Beale had gone: I had the most infernal,
atrocious day. ' Go straight over and put it
to her : let her choose, freely, her own self. '

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 433

So I do, old girl — I put it to you. Can
you choose freely ? "

This long address, slowly and brokenly
uttered, with fidgets and falterings, with
lapses and recoveries, with a mottled face
and embarrassed but supplicating eyes,
reached the child from a quarter so close
that after the shock of the first sharpness
she could see, intensely, its direction and
follow it from point to point; all the more
that it came back to the point at which it
had started. There was a word that had
hummed all through it. " Do you call it a
'sacrifice?'"

" Of Mrs. Wix? I '11 call it whatever you
call it. I won't funk it — I have n't, have I ?
I '11 face it in all its baseness. Does it
strike you it is base for me to get you well
away from her, to smuggle you off here into
a corner and bribe you with sophistries and
buttered rolls to betray her ? "

"To betray her?"

"Well — to part with her."

Maisie let the question wait ; the concrete
image it presented was the most vivid side
of it. "If I part with her where will
she go ? "

"Back to London."

434 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" But I mean what will she do ? "

"Oh, as for that, I won't pretend I know.
I don't. We all have our difficulties."

That, to Maisie, was at this moment more
striking than it had ever been. " Then who
will teach me? "

Sir Claude laughed out. "What Mrs.
Wix teaches?"

Maisie smiled dimly; she saw what he
meant. "It isn't very, very much."

"It's so very, very little," he rejoined,
"that that 's a thing we 've positively to con-
sider. We probably should n't give you
another governess. To begin with, we
shouldn't be able to get one — not of the
only kind that would do. It wouldn't do —
the kind that would to " he queerly enough
explained. " I mean they would n't stay —
heigh-ho! We 'd do you ourselves. Partic-
ularly me. You see I can now; I haven't
got to mind — what I used to. I won't fight
shy as I did — she can show out with me.
Our relation, all round, is more regular. "

It seemed wonderfully regular, the way
he put it; yet none the less, while she
looked at it as judiciously as she could, the
picture it made persisted somehow in being
a combination quite distinct — an old woman

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 435

and a little girl seated in deep silence on a
battered old bench by the rampart of the
haiLte mile. It was just at that hour yester-
day; they were hand in hand; they had
melted together. "I don't think you yet
understand how she clings to you," Maisie
said at last.

"I do — I do. But for all that — !" And
he gave, turning in his conscious exposure,
an oppressed, impatient sigh; the sigh, even
his companion could recognize, of the man
naturally accustomed to that argument, the
man who wanted thoroughly to be reasonable,
but who, if really he had to mind so many
things, would be always impossibly ham-
pered. What it came to indeed was that he
understood quite perfectly. If Mrs. Wix
clung it was all the more reason for shaking
Mrs. Wix off.

This vision of what she had brought him
to occupied our young lady while, to ask
what he owed, he called the waiter and put
down a gold piece that the man carried off
for change. Sir Claude looked after him,
then went on : " How could a woman have
less to reproach a fellow with? I mean as
regards herself."

Maisie entertained the question. "Yes,

436 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

How could she have less ? So why are you
so sure she '11 go?"

"Surely you heard why — you heard her
come out three nights ago ? How can she do
anything but go — after what she then said ?
I 've done what she warned me of — she was
absolutely right. So here we are. Her
liking Mrs. Beale, as you call it, now, is a
motive sufficient with other things to make
her, for your sake, stay on without me; it 's
not a motive sufficient to make her, even for
yours, stay on with me — swallow, in short,
what she can't swallow. And when you
say she 's as fond of me as you are I think I
can, if that 's the case, challenge you a little
on it. Would you, only with those two, stay
on without me ? " The' waiter came back
with the change, and that gave her, under
this appeal, a moment's respite. But when
he had retreated again with the "tip" gath-
ered in with graceful thanks, on a subtle
hint from Sir Claude's forefinger, the latter
while he pocketed the money followed the
appeal up. "Would you let her make you
live with Mrs. Beale? "

"Without you? Never," Maisie then an-
swered. "Never," she said again.

It made him quite triumph, and she was

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 437

indeed herself shaken by the mere sound of
it. "So you see you 're not, like her," he
exclaimed, " so ready to give me away ! "
Then he came back to his original question.
" Can you choose? I mean can you settle
it, by a word, yourself? Will you stay on
with us without her? "

Now in truth she felt the coldness of her
terror, and it Seemed to her that suddenly
she knew, as she knew it about Sir Claude,
what she was afraid of. She was afraid of
herself. She looked at him in such a way
that it brought, she could see, wonder into
his face, a wonder held in check, however,
by his frank pretension to play fair with
her, not to use advantages, not to hurry nor
hustle her — only to put her chance clearly
and kindly before her. "May I think?"
she finally asked.

" Certainly, certainly. But how long ? "

"Oh, only a little while," she said
meekly.

He had for a moment the air of wishing
to look at it as if it were the most cheerful
prospect in the world. "But what shall we
do while you're thinking?" He spoke as
if thought were compatible with almost any
distraction.

438 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

There was but one thing Maisie wished to
do, and after an instant she expressed it.
" Have we got to go back to the hotel ? "

" Do you want to ? "

"Oh no."

"There's not the least necessity for it."
He bent his eyes on his watch ; his face was
now very grave. "We can do anything else
in the world." He looked at her again al-
most as if he were on the point of saying that
they might for instance start off for Paris.
But even while she wondered if that were
not coming he had a sudden drop. "We
can take a walk."

She was all ready, but he sat there as if
he had still something more to say. This
too, however, didn't come; so she herself
spoke. " I think I should like to see Mrs.
Wix first."

" Before you decide ? All right — all
right." He had put on his hat, but he had
still to light a cigarette. He smoked a
minute, with his head thrown back, looking
at the ceiling; then he said: "There 's one
thing to remember — I 've a right to impress
it on you : we stand absolutely in the place
of your parents. It's their defection, their
extraordinary baseness, that has made our

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 439

responsibility. Never was a young person
more directly committed and confided." He
appeared to say this over, at the ceiling,
through his smoke, a little for his own illu-
mination. It carried him, after a pause,
somewhat further. "Though, I admit, it
was to each of us separately."

He gave her so, at that moment and in
that attitude, the sense of wanting, as it
were, to be on her side — on the side of what
would be in every way most right and wise
and charming for her — that she felt a sudden
desire to show herself as not less delicate
and magnanimous, not less solicitous for his
own interests. What were these but that of
the "regularity" he had just before spoken
of? " It was to each of you separately," she
accordingly, with much earnestness, re-
marked ; " but — don't you remember ? — I
brought you together."

He jumped up with a delighted laugh.
"You brought us together, you brought us
together. Come ! "

XXXI

SHE remained out with him for a time of
which she could take no measure save that

440 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

it was too short for what she wished to make
of it — an interval, a barrier, indefinite,
insurmountable. They walked about, they
dawdled, they looked in shop-windows ; they
did all the old things exactly as if to try to
get back all the old safety, to get something
out of them that they had always got before.
This had come before, whatever it was,
without their trying, and nothing came now
but the intenser consciousness of their quest
and their subterfuge. The strangest thing
of all was what had really happened to the
old safety. What had really happened was
that Sir Claude was "free" and that Mrs.
Beale was "free," and yet that the new
medium was somehow still more oppressive
than the old. She could feel that Sir Claude
concurred with her in the sense that the
oppression would be worst at the inn, where,
till something should be settled, they would
feel the want of something — of what could
they call it but a footing? The question of
the settlement loomed larger to her now ; it
depended, she had learned, so completely
on herself. Her choice, as her friend had
called it, was there before her like an impos-
sible sum on a slate, a sum that, in spite of
her plea for consideration, she simply got

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 441

off from doing while she walked about with
him. She must see Mrs. Wix before she
could do her sum ; therefore the longer
before she saw her the more distant would
be the ordeal. She met at present no de-
mand whatever of her obligation; she
simply plunged, to avoid it, deeper into the
company of Sir Claude. She saw nothing
that she had seen hitherto — no touch in the
foreign picture that had at first been always
before her. The only touch was that of Sir
Claude's hand, and to feel her own in it was
her mute resistance to time. She went
about as sightlessly as if he had been leading
her blindfold. If they were afraid of them-
selves it was themselves they would find at
the inn. She was certain now that what
awaited them there would be to lunch with
Mrs. Beale. All her instinct was to avoid
that, to draw out their walk, to find pretexts,
to take him down upon the sands, to take
him to the end of the pier. He said not
another word to her about what they had
talked of at breakfast, and she had a dim
vision of how his way of not letting her see
that he was waiting for anything from her
would make any one who should know of it,
would make Mrs. Wix for instance, think

442 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

him more than ever a gentleman. It was
true that once or twice, on the jetty, on the
sands, he looked at her for an instant with
eyes that seemed to propose to her to come
straight off with him to Paris. That, how-
ever, was not to give her a nudge about her
responsibility. He evidently wanted to pro-
crastinate quite as much as she — he was
not a bit more in a hurry to get back to the
others. Maisie herself, at this moment,
could be secretly merciless to Mrs. Wix —
to the extent at any rate of not caring if
her continued disappearance did make that
lady begin to worry about what had become
of her, even begin to wonder perhaps if
the truants had n't found their remedy. Her
want of mercy to Mrs. Beale, indeed, was at
least as great; for Mrs. Beale' s worry and
wonder would be as much greater as the
object to which they were directed. When
at last Sir Claude, at the far end of \heplage,
which they had already, in the many -colored
crowd, once traversed, suddenly, with a
look at his watch, remarked that it was time,
not to get back to the table c£ kote, but to get
over to the station and meet the Paris papers
— when he did this she found herself think-
ing, quite with intensity, what Mrs. Beale

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 443

and Mrs. Wix would say. On the way over
to the station she had even a mental picture
of the stepfather and the pupil established
in a little place in the south while the
governess and the stepmother, in a little
place in the north, remained linked by a
community of blankness and by the endless
theme of intercourse it would afford. The
Paris papers had come in, and her compan-
ion, with a strange extravagance, bought no
less of them than nine: it took up time
while they hovered at the bookstall on the
restless platform, where the little volumes
in a row were all yellow and pink and one
of her favorite old women, in one of her
favorite old caps, absolutely wheedled him
into the purchase of three. They had thus
so much to carry home that it would have
seemed simpler, with such a provision for
a nice straight journey through France, just
to "nip," as she phrased it to herself, into
the coupe of the train that, a little further
along, stood waiting to start. She asked
Sir Claude where it was going.

"To Paris. Fancy!"

She could fancy well enough. They stood
there and smiled, he with all the newspapers
under his arm and she with the three books,

444 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

one yellow and two pink. He had told her
the pink were for herself and the yellow one
for Mrs. Beale, implying, in an interesting
way, that these were the vivid divisions, in
France, of literature for the young and for
the old. She knew that they looked exactly
as if they were going to get into the train,
and she presently brought out to her com-
panion : " I wish we could go. Won't you
take me ? "

He continued to smile. "Would you
really come ? "

"Oh yes, oh yes! Try!"

"Do you want me to take our tickets?"

"Yes, take them."

" Without any luggage ? "

She showed their two armfuls, smiling at
him as he smiled at her, but so conscious of
being more frightened than she had ever
been in her life, that she seemed to catch
all her whiteness as in a glass. Then she
knew that what she saw was Sir Claude's
whiteness ; he was as frightened as herself.
"Haven't we got plenty?" she asked.
" Take the tickets — have n't you time ?
When does the train go ? "

Sir Claude turned to a porter. "When
does the train go ? "

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 445

The man looked up at the station clock.
"In two minutes. Monsieur est plact ? "

" Pas encore. "

" Vous ri avez qtie le temps." Then, after
a look at Maisie, "Monsieur veut-il que je
les prenne? " the man inquired.

Sir Claude turned back to her. " Veux-tu
bien qu'il en prenne f "

It was the most extraordinary thing in the
world : in the intensity of her excitement
she not only, by illumination, understood
all their French, but fell into it with an
active perfection. She addressed herself
straight to the porter. " Prenny, prenny.
Oh, prenny!"

"Ah, si mademoiselle le veut — /" He
waited there for the money.

But Sir Claude only stared — stared at her
with his pale face. "You have chosen,
then? You'll let her go?"

Maisie carried her eyes wistfully to the
train, where, amid cries of "En voiture,
en voiture!" heads were at windows and
doors were banging loud. The porter
was pressing. " Oh, vous rf avez plus le
temps ! "

" It 's going — it 's going ! " cried Maisie.

They watched it move, they watched it

446 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

start; then the man went his way with a
shrug. " It 's gone ! " Sir Claude said.

Maisie crept some distance up the plat-
form ; she stood there with her back to her
companion, following it with her eyes, keep-
ing down tears, nursing her pink and yellow
books. She had had a real fright, but had
fallen back to earth. The odd thing was
that in her fall her fear too had been dashed
down and broken. It was gone. She looked
round at last, from where she had paused,
at Sir Claude's, and then she saw that his
was not. It sat there with him on the bench
to which, against the wall of the station, he
had retreated and where, leaning back and,
as she thought, very queer, he still waited.
She came down to him, and he continued to
offer his ineffectual intention of pleasantry.
" Yes, I 've chosen," she said to him. " I '11
let her go if you — if you — "

She faltered; he quickly took her up.
"If I, if I—?"

" If you '11 give up Mrs. Beale."

" Oh ! " he exclaimed ; on which she saw
how much, how hopelessly he was afraid.
She had supposed at the cafe that it was of
his rebellion, of his gathering motive; but
how could that be when his temptations —

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 447

that temptation for instance of the train they
had just lost — were, after all, so small ?
Mrs. Wix was right. He was afraid of his
weakness — of his weakness.

She could not have told you afterwards
how they got back to the inn: she could
only have told you that even from this point
they had not gone straight, but once more
had wandered and loitered and, in the course
of it, had found themselves on the edge of
the quay, where — still, apparently, with
half an hour to spare — the boat prepared
for Folkestone was drawn up. Here they
hovered as they had done at the station ; here
they exchanged silences again, but only
exchanged silences. There were punctual
people on the deck, choosing places, taking
the best; some of them already contented,
all established and shawled, facing to Eng-
land and attended by the steward, who, con-
fined on such a day to the lighter offices,
tucked up the ladies' feet or opened bottles
with a pop. They looked down at these
things without a word ; they even picked out
a good place for two that was left in the lee
of a lifeboat; and if they lingered rather
stupidly, neither deciding to go aboard nor
deciding to come away, it was, quite as

448 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

much as she, Sir Claude who would n't move.
It was Sir Claude who cultivated the su-
preme stillness by which she knew best what
he meant. He simply meant that he knew
all she herself meant. But there was no
pretence of pleasantry now ; their faces were
grave and tired. When at last they lounged
off it was as if his fear, his fear of his weak-
ness, leaned upon her hard while they fol-
lowed the harbor. In the hall of the hotel,
as they passed in, she saw a battered old box
that she recognized, an ancient receptacle
with dangling labels that she knew and a
big painted W, lately done over and in-
tensely personal, that seemed to stare at
her with a recognition and even with some
suspicion of its own. Sir Claude caught it
too, and there was agitation for both of them
in the sight of this object on the move.
Was Mrs. Wix going, and was the responsi-
bility of giving her up lifted, at a touch,
from her pupil? Her pupil and her pupil's
companion, transfixed a moment, held, in
the presence of the omen, communication
more intense than in the presence either of
the Paris train or of the Channel steamer;
then, and still without a word, they went
straight upstairs. There, however, on the

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 449

landing, out of sight of the people below,
they collapsed so that they had to sink down
together for support: they simply seated
themselves on the uppermost step while Sir
Claude grasped the hand of his stepdaughter
with a pressure that at another moment
would probably have made her squeal.
Their books and papers were all scattered.
" She thinks you 've given her up ! "

" Then I must see her — I must see her ! "
Maisie said.

"To bid her good-bye ?"

"I must see her — I must see her!" the
child only repeated.

They sat a minute longer, Sir Claude with
his tight grip of her hand and looking away
from her, looking straight down the staircase
to where, round the turn, electric bells
rattled and the pleasant sea-draught blew.
At last, loosening his grasp, he slowly rose,
on which she did the same. They went
together along the lobby; but before they
reached the salon he stopped again. "If I
give up Mrs. Beale — ?"

"I '11 go straight out with you again and
not come back till she has gone."

He seemed to wonder. "Till Mrs.
Beale — ?"

29

450 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

He had made it sound like a bad joke.
" I mean till Mrs. Wix leaves — in that boat."

Sir Claude looked almost foolish. "Is
she going in that boat ? "

" I suppose so. I won't even bid her
good-bye," Maisie continued; "I '11 stay
out till the boat has gone. I '11 go up to
the old rampart."

"The old rampart?"

"I '11 sit on that old bench where you see
the gold Virgin."

"The gold Virgin?" he vaguely echoed.
But it brought his eyes back to her as if,
after an instant, he could see the place and
the thing she named — could see her sitting
there alone. "While I break with Mrs.
Beale?"

"While you break with Mrs. Beale."

He gave a long, deep, smothered sigh.
" I must see her first. "

"You won't do as I do? Go out and
wait ? "

"Wait?" — once more he appeared at a
loss.

"Till they both have gone," Maisie said.

" Giving us up ? "

" Giving us up. "

Oh, with what a face, for an instant, he

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 451

wondered if that could be ! But his wonder
the next moment only made him go to the
door and, with his hand on the knob, stand
as if listening for voices. Maisie listened,
but she heard none. All she heard, pres-
ently, was Sir Claude's saying, with specula-
tion quite averted, but so as not to be heard
in the salon: "Mrs. Beale will never go."
On this he pushed open the door, and she
went in with him. The salon was empty,
but, as an effect of their entrance, the lady
he had just mentioned appeared at the door
of the bedroom. "Is she going?" he then
demanded.

Mrs. Beale came forward, closing her
door behind her. "I've had the most
extraordinary scene with her. She told me
yesterday she 'd stay."

" And my arrival has altered it ? "
" Oh, we took that into account ! " Mrs.
Beale was flushed, which was never quite
becoming to her, and her face visibly testi-
fied to the encounter to which she alluded.
Evidently, however, she had not been
worsted, and she held up her head and
smiled and rubbed her hands as if in sud-
den emulation of \h.z patronne. "She prom-
ised she 'd stay even if you should come."

452 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

" Then why has she changed ? "

"Because she 's an idiot. The reason she
herself gives is that you 've been out too
long. "

Sir Claude stared. " What has that to do
with it?"

" You 've been out an age, " Mrs. Beale con-
tinued; "I myself couldn't imagine what
had become of you. The whole morning,"
she exclaimed, "and luncheon long since
over ! "

Sir Claude appeared indifferent to that.
"Did Mrs. Wix go down with you?" he
only asked.

" Not she ; she never budged ! " — and Mrs.
Beale's flush, to Maisie's vision, deepened.
" She moped there — she did n't so much as
come out to me; and when I sent to invite
her she simply declined to appear. She
said she wanted nothing, and I went down
alone. But when I came up, fortunately a
little primed," — and Mrs. Beale smiled
a fine smile of battle — • " she was in the
field!"

" And you had a big row ? "

" We had a big row. " She assented with
a nod of the same size. "And while you left
me to that sort of thing I should like to

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 453

know where you were ! " She paused for a
reply, but Sir Claude merely looked at
Maisie; a movement that promptly quick-
ened her challenge. "Where the mischief
have you been ? "

" You seem to take it as hard as Mrs.
Wix," Sir Claude returned.

" I take it as I choose to take it, and you
don't answer my question."

He looked again at Maisie, and as if for
an aid to this effort; whereupon she smiled
at her stepmother and offered : " We 've
been everywhere."

Mrs. Beale, however, made her no re-
sponse, thereby adding to a surprise of which
our young lady had already felt the light
brush. She had received neither a greeting
nor a glance; but perhaps this was not
more remarkable than the omission, in re-
spect to Sir Claude, parted with in London
two days before, of any sign of a sense of
their reunion. Most remarkable of all was
Mrs. Beale' s announcement of the pledge
given by Mrs. Wix and not hitherto revealed
to her pupil. Instead of heeding this wit-
ness she went on with acerbity : " It might
surely have occurred to you that something
would come up."

454 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Sir Claude looked at his watch. " I had
no idea it was so late, nor that we had been
out so long. We were n't hungry. It
passed like a flash. What has come up? "

"Oh, that she's disgusted," said Mrs.
Beale.

" Disgusted ? With whom ? "

"With Maisie." Even now she never
looked at the child, who stood there equally
associated and disconnected. " For having
no moral sense."

"How should she have?" Sir Claude
tried again to shine a little at the companion
of his walk. " How, at any rate, is it proved
by her going out with me? "

"Don't ask me; ask that woman. She
drivels when she doesn't rage," Mrs. Beale,
declared.

"And she leaves the child? "

"She leaves the child," said Mrs. Beale
with great emphasis, looking more than ever
over Maisie' s head.

In this position suddenly a change came
into her face, caused, as the others could,
the next thing, see, by the reappearance of
Mrs. Wix in the doorway which, on coming
in at Sir Claude's heels, Maisie had left
gaping. "I don't leave the child — I don't,

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 455

I don't ! " she thundered from the threshold,
advancing upon the opposed three, but
addressing herself directly to Maisie. She
was girded, positively harnessed, for de-
parture — arrayed as she had been arrayed
on her advent and armed with a small, fat,
rusty reticule which, almost in the manner
of a battle-axe, she brandished in support of
her words. She had clearly come straight
from her room, where Maisie in an instant
guessed she had directed the removal of her
minor effects. "I don't leave you till I've
given you another chance. Will you come
with me ? "

Maisie turned to Sir Claude, who struck
her as having been removed to a distance
of about a mile. To Mrs. Beale she turned
no more than Mrs. Beale had turned: she
felt as if already their difference had been
disclosed. What had come out about that
in the scene between the two women?
Enough came out now, at all events, as she
put it practically to her stepfather. "Will
you come? Won't you?" she inquired as
if she had not already seen that she should
have to give him up. It was the last flare
of her dream; by this time she was afraid
of nothing.

456 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

"I should think you'd be too proud to
ask ! " Mrs. Wix interposed. Mrs. Wix was
herself conspicuously too proud.

But at the child's words Mrs. Beale had
fairly bounded. "Come away from me,
Maisie?" It was a wail of dismay and re-
proach in which her stepdaughter was aston-
ished to read that she had had no hostile
consciousness and that if she had been so
actively grand it was not from suspicion,
but from strange entanglements of modesty.

Sir Claude presented to Mrs. Beale an
expression positively sick. "Don't put it
to her that way!" There had indeed been
something in Mrs. Beale' s tone, and for a
moment our young lady was reminded of the
old days in which so many of her friends had
been "compromised."

This friend blushed -— it was before Mrs.
Wix; and though she bridled she took the
hint. "No — it isn't the way." Then she
showed she knew the way. "Don't be a
still bigger fool, dear, but go straight to
your room and wait there till I can come to
you."

Maisie made no motion to obey, but Mrs.
Wix raised a hand that forestalled every
evasion. "Don't move till you've heard

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 457

me. / 'm going, but I must first understand.
Have you lost it again ? "

Maisie surveyed, for the idea of a partic-
ular loss, the immensity of space. Then
she replied lamely enough: "I feel as if I
had lost everything."

Mrs. Wix looked dark. "Do you mean
to say you have lost what we found together,
with so much difficulty, two days ago ? " As
her pupil failed of response, she continued :
" Do you mean to say you 've already for-
gotten what we found together ? "

Maisie dimly remembered. " My moral
sense?"

"Your moral sense. Haven't I, after all,
brought it out ? " She spoke as she had never
spoken even in the schoolroom and with the
book in her hand.

It brought back to the child a recollection
of how sometimes she could n't repeat on
Friday the sentence that had been glib on
Wednesday, and she thought with conscious
stupidity of the mystery on which she was
now pulled up. Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale
stood there like visitors at an "exam."
She had indeed an instant a whiff of the
faint flower that Mrs. Wix pretended to have
plucked and now, with such a peremptory

458 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

hand, passed under her nose. Then it left
her, and, as if she were sinking with a slip
from a foothold, her arms made a short jerk.
What this jerk represented was the spasm
within her of something still deeper than a
moral sense. She looked at her examiner;
she looked at the visitors ; she felt the ris-
ing of the tears she had kept down at the
station. The only thing was the old flat,
shameful schoolroom plea. "I don't know
— I don't know."

"Then you 've lost it." Mrs. Wix seemed
to close the book as she fixed the straight-
eners on Sir Claude. "You 've nipped it in
the bud. You 've killed it when it had
begun to live."

She was a newer Mrs. Wix than ever, a
Mrs. Wix high and great; but Sir Claude
was not after all to be treated as a little boy
with a missed lesson. " I 've not killed any-
thing," he said; "on the contrary, I think
I 've produced life. I don't know what to
call it — I have n't even known how decently
to deal with it to approach it ; but whatever
it is it 's the most beautiful thing I 've ever
met — it 's exquisite, it 's sacred." He had
his hands in his pockets, and though a trace
of the sickness he had just shown still per-

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 459

haps lingered there his face bent itself with
extraordinary gentleness on both the friends
he was about to lose. "Do you know what
I came back for? " he asked of the elder.

" I think I do ! " cried Mrs. Wix, surpris-
ingly unmollified and with a crimson on her
brow that was like a wave of color reflected
from the luridness lately enacted with Mrs.
Beale. That lady, as if a little besprinkled
by such turns of the tide, uttered a loud, in-
articulate protest and, averting herself, stood
a moment at the window.

"I came back with a proposal," said Sir
Claude.

"Tome?" Mrs. Wix asked.

"To Maisie. That she should give you
up."

"And does she?"

Sir Claude wavered. " Tell her ! " he then
exclaimed to the child, also turning away
as if to give her the chance. But Mrs. Wix
and her pupil stood confronted in silence,
Maisie whiter than ever — more awkward,
more rigid and yet more dumb. They
looked at each other hard, and as nothing
came from them Sir Claude faced about
again. " You won't tell her ? — you can't ? "
Still she said nothing; whereupon, address-

460 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

ing Mrs. Wix, he broke into a kind of
ecstasy. " She refused — she refused ! "

Maisie, at this, found her voice. "I
did n't refuse. I did n't," she said again.

It brought Mrs. Beale straight back to
her. " You accepted, angel — you ac-
cepted ! " She threw herself upon the child
and before Maisie could resist had sunk
with her upon the sofa, possessed of her,
encircling her. " You 've given her up
already, you 've given her up forever, and
you 're ours and ours only now, and the
sooner she 's off the better ! "

Maisie had shut her eyes, but at a word
of Sir Claude's they opened. " Let her go ! "
he said to Mrs. Beale.

" Never, never, never ! " cried Mrs. Beale.
Maisie felt herself more embraced.

" Let her go ! " Sir Claude more intensely
repeated. He was looking at Mrs. Beale,
and there was something in his voice.
Maisie knew, from a loosening of arms, that
she had become conscious of what it was;
she slowly rose from the sofa, and the child
stood there again, dropped and divided.
"You're free — -you're free," Sir Claude
went on; at which Maisie's back became
aware of a push that vented resentment and

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 461

that placed her again in the centre of the
room, the cynosure of every eye and not
knowing which way to turn.

She turned with an effort to Mrs. Wix.
" I did n't refuse to give you up. I said I
would if he ' d give up."

"Give up Mrs. Beale?" burst from Mrs.
Wix.

" Give up Mrs. Beale. What do you call
that but exquisite?" Sir Claude demanded
of all of them, the lady mentioned included ;
speaking with a relish as intense now as if
some lovely work of art or of nature had
suddenly been set down among them. He
was rapidly recovering himself on this basis
of fine appreciation. " She made her condi-
tion — with such a sense of what it should
be ! She made the only right one. "

"The only right one?" — Mrs. Beale re-
turned to the charge. She had taken, a
moment before, a check from him, but she
was not to be checked on this. "How can
you talk such rubbish, and how can you back
her up in such impertinence ? What in the
world have you done to her to make her think
of such stuff?" She stood there in right-
eous wrath ; she flashed her eyes round the
circle. Maisie took them full in her own,

462 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

knowing that here at last was the moment she
had had most to reckon with. But as regards
her stepdaughter Mrs. Beale subdued herself
to an inquiry deeply mild. " Have you made,
my own love, any such condition as that ? "

Somehow, now that it was there, the great
moment was not so bad. What helped the
child was that she knew what she wanted.
All her learning and learning had made her
at last learn that ; so that if she waited an
instant to reply it was only from the desire
to be nice. Bewilderment had simply gone,
or at any rate was going fast. Finally she an-
swered : " Will you give him up ? Will you ? "

" Ah, leave her alone — leave her, leave
her!" Sir Claude, in sudden supplication,
murmured to Mrs. Beale.

Mrs. Wix at the same instant found an-
other apostrophe. " Is n't it enough for you,
madam, to have brought her to discussing
your relations ? "

Mrs. Beale left Sir Claude unheeded, but
Mrs. Wix could make her flame. " My rela-
tions ? What do you know, you hideous crea-
ture, about my relations, and what business on
earth have you to speak of them ? Leave the
room this instant, you horrible old woman ! "

"I think you had better go — you must

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 463

really catch your boat," Sir Claude said dis-
tressfully to Mrs. Wix. He was out of it now,
or wanted to be ; he knew the worst and had
accepted it; what now concerned him was
to prevent, to dissipate vulgarities. "Won't
you go — won't you just get off quickly? "

"With the child as quickly as you like.
Not without her. " Mrs. Wix was adamant.

" Then why did you lie to me, you fiend ? "
Mrs. Beale almost yelled. "Why did you
tell me an hour ago that you had given her up ? "

"Because I despaired of her — because I
thought she had left me. " Mrs. Wix turned
to Maisie. " You were with them — in their
connection. But now your eyes are open,
and I take you ! "

"No you don't!" — Mrs. Beale made,
with a great fierce jump, a wild snatch at
her stepdaughter. She caught her by the
arm and, completing an instinctive move-
ment, whirled her round in a further leap to
the door, which had been closed by Sir
Claude the instant their voices had risen.
She fell back against it and, even while
denouncing and waring off Mrs. Wix, kept
it closed in an incoherence of passion. "Yon
don't take her, but you bundle yourself; die
stays with her own people and she *s rid of

464 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

you ! I never heard anything so monstrous ! "
Sir Claude had rescued Maisie and kept hold
of her; he held her in front of him, resting
his hands very lightly on her shoulders and
facing the loud adversaries. Mrs. Beale's
flush had dropped ; she had turned pale with
a splendid wrath. She kept protesting and
dismissing Mrs. Wix ; she pressed her back to
the door to prevent Maisie's flight; she drove
out Mrs. Wix by the window or the chimney.
"You 're a nice one — ' discussing relations '
— with your talk of our * connection ' and
your insults ! What in the world is our con-
nection but the love of the child who is our
duty and our life and who holds us together
as closely as she originally brought us ? "

" I know, I know ! " Maisie said with a
burst of eagerness. " I did bring you."

The strangest of laughs escaped from Sir
Claude. " You did bring us — you did ! "
His hands went up and down gently on her
shoulders.

Mrs. Wix so dominated the situation that
she had something sharp for every one.
" There you have it, you see ! " she preg-
nantly remarked to her pupil.

" WMlyou give him up ? " Maisie persisted
to Mrs. Beale.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 465

<trYc> you, you abominable little horror?"
that lady indignantly inquired, "and to this
ignorant old idiot who has filled your dread-
ful little mind with her wickedness? Have
you been a hideous little hypocrite all these
years that I 've slaved to make you love me
and deludedly believed that you did ? "

"I love Sir Claude — I love him" Maisie
replied with a sense, slightly rueful and
embarrassed, that she appeared to offer it
as something that would do as well. Sir
Claude had continued to pat her, and it was
really an answer to his pats.

"She hates you — she hates you," he ob-
served with the oddest quietness to Mrs.
Beale.

His quietness made her blaze. " And you
back her up in it and give me up to outrage ? "

" No ; I only insist that she 's free — she 's
free."

Mrs. Beale stared — Mrs. Beale glared.
" Free to starve with this pauper lunatic? "

" I '11 do more for her than you ever did ! "
Mrs. Wix cried. "I '11 work my fingers to
the bone."

Maisie, with Sir Claude's hands still on
her shoulders, felt, just as she felt the fine
surrender in them, that over her head he looked
30

466 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

in a certain way at Mrs. Wix. " You need n't
do that, " she heard him say ; " she has means. "

" Means ? — Maisie ? " Mrs. Beale shrieked.
" Means that her vile father has stolen ! "

" I'll get them back — I ' 11 get them back.
I'll look into it." He smiled and nodded
at Mrs. Wix.

This had a fearful effect on his other
friend. " Have n't / looked into it, I should
like to know, and haven't I found — an
abyss? It 's too inconceivable, your cruelty
to me!" she wildly broke out. She had
hot tears in her eyes.

He spoke to her very kindly, almost
coaxingly. "We'll look into it again;
we'll look into it together. It is an abyss,
but he can be made — or Ida can ! Think
of the money they're getting now!" he
laughed. "It's all right, it's all right,"
he continued. " It would n't do — it
wouldn't do. We cant work her in. It 's
perfectly true — she 's unique. We 're not
good enough — oh no ! " And, quite exuber-
antly, he laughed again.

"Not good enough, and that beast is?"
Mrs. Beale shouted.

At this, for a moment, there was a hush
in the room, and in the midst of it Sir

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 467

Claude replied to the question by moving
with Maisie to Mrs. Wix. The next thing
the child knew she was at that lady's side
with an arm firmly grasped. Mrs. Beale
still guarded the door. "Let them pass,"
said Sir Claude at last.

She remained there, however; Maisie saw
the pair look at each other. Then she saw
Mrs. Beale turn to her. "I 'm your mother
now, Maisie. And he 's your father."

"That's just where it is!" Mrs. Wix
sighed with an effect of irony positively
detached and philosophic.

Mrs. Beale continued to address her young
friend, and her effort to be reasonable and
tender was in its way remarkable. "We 're
representative, you know, of Mr. Farange
and his former wife. This person repre-
sents mere illiterate presumption. We take
our stand on the law. "

"Oh the law, the law!" Mrs. Wix
superbly jeered. "You had better indeed
let the law have a look at you ! "

"Let them pass — let them pass!" Sir
Claude pressed his friend — he pleaded.

But she fastened herself still to Maisie.
"Do you hate me, dearest ? "

Maisie looked at her with new eyes, but

468 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

answered as she had answered before.
" Will you give him up ? "

Mrs. Beale's rejoinder hung fire, but when
it came it was noble. "You shouldn't talk
to me of such things ! " She was shocked to
tears.

For Mrs. Wix, however, it was her resent-
ment that was shocking. " You ought to be
ashamed of yourself ! " she roundly declared.

Sir Claude made a supreme appeal. " Will
you be so good as to allow these horrors to
terminate? "

Mrs. Beale fixed her eyes on him, and
again Maisie watched them. "You should
do him justice," Mrs. Wix went on to Mrs.
Beale. "We've always been devoted to
him, Maisie and I — and he has shown how
much he likes us. He would like to please
her; he would like even, I think, to please
me. But he hasn't given you up."

They stood confronted, the step-parents,
still under Maisie' s observation. That
observation had never sunk so deep 'as at
this particular moment. "Yes, my dear, I
haven't given you up," Sir Claude said at
last to Mrs. Beale, "and if you 'd like me to
treat our friends here as solemn witnesses I
don't mind giving you my word for it that I

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 469

never, never will. There ! " he dauntlessly
exclaimed.

"He can't!" Mrs. Wix as distinctly
commented.

Mrs. Beale, erect and alive in her defeat,
jerked her handsome face about. "He
can't ! " she literally mocked.

"He can't, he can't, he can't!" Sir
Claude's gay emphasis wonderfully carried
it off.

Mrs. Beale took it all in, yet she held her
ground; on which Maisie addressed Mrs.
Wix. " Sha'n't we lose the boat ? "

"Yes, we shall lose the boat," Mrs. Wix
mentioned to Sir Claude.

Mrs. Beale meanwhile faced full at Maisie.
"I don't know what to make of you!" she
launched.

"Good-by," said Maisie to Sir Claude.

" Good-by, Maisie," Sir Claude answered.

Mrs. Beale came away from the door.
" Good-by ! " she hurled at Maisie ; then
passed straight across the room and disap-
peared in the adjoining one.

Sir Claude had reached the door and
opened it. Mrs. Wix was already out. On
the threshold Maisie paused ; she put out her
hand to her stepfather. He took it and held

470 WHAT MAISIE KNEW

it a moment, and their eyes met as the eyes
of those who have done for each other what
they can. , " Good-by," he repeated.

"Good-by." And Maisie followed Mrs.
Wix.

They caught the steamer, which was just
putting off, and, hustled across the gulf,
found themselves on the deck so breathless
and so scared that they gave up half the
voyage to letting their emotion sink. It
sank slowly and imperfectly; but at last,
in mid-channel, surrounded by the quiet
sea, Mrs. Wix had courage to revert. "I
didn't look back, did you?"

"Yes. He wasn't there," said Maisie.

"Not on the balcony?"

Maisie waited a moment; then, "He
wasn't there," she simply said again.

Mrs. Wix also was silent awhile. "He
went to her," she finally observed.

" Oh, I know ! " the child replied.

Mrs. Wix gave a sidelong look. She still
had room for wonder at what Maisie knew.

7 02.00

M